


Convalescence

by Zarla



Series: Vargas Continuity [9]
Category: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Genre: Abuse, Disjointed narrative, Emotional Abuse, Hallucinations, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Disintegration, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Multiple Personalities, Multiple Universes, Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse, reality shifting, self-injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-13
Updated: 2006-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-13 03:56:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zarla/pseuds/Zarla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Violation. After a series of mental breakdowns, Edgar goes to a mental hospital, where things will definitely get better. Definitely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Admission

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Contains disturbing imagery of varying degrees, particularly involving violence and physical/sexual/emotional abuse.

"It's lunch...is Edgar still in his room?"

"Probably. He doesn't come out unless you force him to."

"Well, figures, considering. He's on unit restriction, it's not like he's got a lot of places to be."

"So why-"

"Can't eat in the rooms. He at least should get out into the main room to eat."

"So who's going to go get him?"

"I'm charting for Desir, so I'm out."

"You?"

"Nuh uh, I'm doing the peds group in like, five minutes."

"Sue! Hey, Sue!"

"Yeah?"

"Get Edgar Vargas to go to lunch."

"What?"

"He's still in his room."

"Why do I have to do it? You know what he did to-"

"Okay, that wasn't a nurse, for one thing-"

"I just don't feel safe around him, okay? He's really psychotic-"

"Ha ha, like that's unusual?"

"You know what I mean. He makes me really uncomfortable..."

"Heh, is it the eye? That's creepy as hell."

"Hey, I got him an eyepatch, Pam! Give me some credit for that."

"Let me get my golf-clap ready."

"Yeah yeah, fuck you. But last I saw he's still got the patch, so at least that's been taken care of. It's not so bad when you don't see it everyday."

"No, it's not the eye that makes me uncomfortable..."

"Then what, Sue? C'mon. You've worked with worse than that guy. At least he's quiet most of the time."

"No, it's just...I don't know, Jen. It's like...I don't think he's getting better. I think he knows he's not going to, you know?"

"Oh oh, wait, I know why she's freaked out."

"Okay Pam, shoot."

"It's-"

"It's that alternate personality, isn't it? Skree or whatever."

"Screebean?"

"Screeban?"

"Skeeball?"

Laughter.

"Guys-"

"Skippy!"

"Scooby!"

"Scruffy!"

"Sasha!"

"Sasha, what the hell-"

"Guys, shut up! You shouldn't do that."

"He can't hear us, lighten up."

"But it's that guy, isn't it? The other personality? God, I remember once I was walking along and I watched him shift, it was the fucking creepiest thing. He just completely changed his walk and posture and everything. Even the look on his face."

"Heh, and the alter is such a total bastard too. You wouldn't believe what he said about what I was wearing-"

"Is that it, Sue? Are you just creeped out by Scri?"

"Aw Sue, don't let that get to you. I know that one time-"

"No, I can handle it, okay?"

"God, that Scri guy can be creepy too though. I mean, at least Edgar is quiet most of the time. The Scri one just can't stop talking _ever_ , and most of the time it doesn't even make sense."

"Heh, I swear, for all the quiet nervousness of that guy Scri makes up for it five times over. Ego the size of a fucking continent."

"Hey, do you think that Edgar hasn't come out 'cause he's in the Scri personality?"

"God, I hope not. You can't get Scri to do _any_ thing. Edgar at least'll listen. Scri gets all sarcastic and thinks he's clever or just starts fights. Did you see how many seclusion-restraints he's got racked up in his chart? Christ."

"Didn't he get an IMR at one point?"

"Shit, probably-"

"Edgar too, though. I mean, when he starts seeing things, he can get really aggressive."

"Well yeah, but it's not on purpose, mostly. Edgar's nice enough, when you get down to it."

"I guess, but still. Remember that one time he punched right through that window? Said something about butterflies?"

"God, did you ever get a good look at his fingers? I've never seen-, ugh! I can't imagine ever doing that to myself!"

"Well, they upped his meds and he's been quiet since, so..."

"Okay, I'll do it. What room is he in again?"

"Change of heart?"

"Someone's got to, right?"

"Okay, but be careful though, Sue, all right?"

"Remember what happened to that one guy? I mean, he looks safe enough, but he can get nasty real fast, and I couldn't believe that a guy as thin as he is could-"

"Yeah, you're not helping, Pam."

"All right, Room...204.The other two there already left for lunch, so he should be alone. If he doesn't respond, just go and look inside."

"Right. Hey, Jose."

"Hey. Goin' to find the stragglers?"

"You know it."

"Be careful."

~~~

All the other doors were open, rooms empty. Only this door remained closed. Sue knocked.

"Female staff."

Waited a few minutes.

"Edgar? Are you awake?" She pressed her ear to the door. "It's time for lunch."

Nothing.

Sue sighed and shook her head. She always hated invading people's privacy like this, and she had found that they, likewise, did not appreciate it. She had been on the receiving end of some rather nasty verbal (and once physical) attacks after entering someone's room, but if Edgar wasn't going to open the door, then...

"Edgar?"

Still quiet. That wasn't entirely unusual, considering. Edgar Vargas had proven to be one of those patients that said little when spoken to and nothing when left alone. He just withdrew into himself, which wasn't unusual by any means. There were dozens of people here who did just that.

Edgar also had an obedient streak in him; he would do what was asked of him without protest. It made him difficult to read, but easy to work with.

Mostly.

Well, if the room was quiet, that meant that he wasn't in the Scriabin personality for now. If that personality was currently present, she was sure that her knocking would have been greeted with anything but silence.

She turned the knob, inched the door open. She stood back so she could keep a clear view of the room, looking for a sign of Edgar anywhere. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw him curled up on his bed in the corner.

"Edgar, it's time for lunch."

Edgar didn't say anything. Sue sighed and moved further into the room, kept a close eye on her surroundings.

"You've got be hungry. If you're tired, you can come back and nap later."

Still no response, although he did twitch at the sound of her voice. She stood by his bed now, watching him carefully. She had left the door to the room open, to make sure that if she needed help she would be heard. She didn't really expect Edgar to do anything, but there were rules she had to follow.

"Did Nny call?" His voice was very soft and a bit hoarse from disuse, and Sue felt a twinge of compassion. Whoever this Johnny person was (the docs insisted that he didn't exist and the chart stated the same, although Sue thought that Edgar seemed too convinced of his reality for him to just be an imaginary friend), he was always foremost in Edgar's thoughts. It was always the same question, no matter the time or activity or line of inquiry. He always asked, and Sue hated to do it, but she always had to answer the same way.

"No, Edgar."

A silence, and then Edgar slowly rolled over to look at her. When he had been admitted he just had a ragged, festering hole instead of an eye, and it made Sue sick to even think of what it looked like. Despite his protests (God, why would he protest such a thing?) they got him some real medical attention and the teeming mass of seeping infections was cleared up into something smooth and strangely shiny looking. It made the deformity no less disturbing. The fact that Edgar didn't even seem to notice or care that he had a hole where his eye should have been also made it rather unnerving. The other patients had felt similarly, and Jen had petitioned to get Edgar an eyepatch. No one expected him to accept the offering, as Edgar had refused all attempts to remove or hide his other scars, but he did take the eyepatch.

It wasn't pride that kept Edgar from hiding his wounds. Sue wasn't sure what it was. Apathy maybe. Edgar just didn't seem to care, or maybe he didn't even know they were there at all.

Scriabin, however, did know, and just mentioning the marks across his body when he was present was enough to set him off. Not that getting him started was difficult to begin with.

"Did he write me a letter?" His voice was soft and quiet, completely non-threatening. That was the easiest way to tell the difference between Edgar and his alternate personality. Scriabin always sounded angry, frustrated, violent, and he spoke loudly and clearly. Even the interns could tell the difference, despite their limited contact. Anyone who worked on or even dropped by Adult 1 was warned about Edgar/Scriabin, and most of the inexperienced were warned away entirely.

Still, it paid for them to know who was who, even if they never really interacted with him.

"No, Edgar."

She held out her hand, and Edgar took it quietly. His knuckles were white from dozens of small wounds that had never healed properly, and the tips of his fingers a ragged mess of scar tissue. She pulled him up into a sitting position.

"Can I call him?"

Sue sighed. She didn't like dealing with him because of Scriabin, surely, but Edgar himself was still emotionally exhausting. He wanted so little, and she could not give it to him. She felt a lot of pity originally, but you can't do that for long periods of time and stay healthy. Now and again a twinge returned to her, and she fought to keep it down.

Had to be honest, and she wondered if Edgar knew that her response was always and would always be the same. "Do you know his phone number?"

Edgar looked down, visibly crushed, and his voice shook.

"No."

He couldn't call him without it. Every time it was like she tore his heart out again. She'd never get used to this, and she sighed. 

"C'mon, it's time for lunch. Aren't you hungry?" She tugged him to his feet, and he followed her directions without complaint.

"Why won't he call me?" He asked her as they walked out of the room.

Sue knew what she was supposed to say, that she wasn't supposed to feed his delusions about this imaginary person, but he sounded so distraught.

"I don't know."

~~~

"Hello there, my name is Jen. Sorry I'm running a bit late, I had a few things to take care of."

Blink, and something fell from the socket onto the table.

"Hello, my name is Edgar Vargas."

"Uh huh. Are you all right? Are you crying?"

"No."

"Just want to make sure. If you need anything, just ask me. Now, I'm here to just ask you a few questions so we can get a good idea of your treatment goals here."

Nod.

"Now, why are you here?"

Tilted his head slowly at her, almost smiled.

"I've gone insane."

A pen scratching on paper.

"Mmhmm. How so?"

No response. Long pause, and no response. Wasn't going to respond, ask him for clarification later, and the pen ticked down to the next box. 

"Edgar?"

Twitch, had his attention.

"Edgar, it says here that it looks like you attempted suicide. You have scars on your wrists that suggest it. Did you?"

"Yes."

"What happened?"

Voice was completely calm. The pen marked "flat affect" on the sheet. "The first real attempt was when he tried to slit my wrists. I'm not sure how I managed to stop the bleeding, but when I woke up my wrists were bandaged and the bathtub was full of red water. One of my razors was missing. I assume, therefore, that he attempted to slit my wrists and was somehow foiled in one way or another."

Marked the advanced vocabulary box. "...Who attempted this?"

"Scriabin."

"And who is Scriabin?"

Eye twitching and fingers drumming continuously on the tabletop. A slight twist of the neck, a soft pop, and the motion ceased.

"That would be me."

Pen tapped on the table hesitantly.

"So you're both Edgar and Scriabin?"

Leaned forward on his arms, rough and raw with mangled wounds and letters that were still just legible. A knowing smile, a soft and confident voice, condescending and bitter.

"Oh, that is such a tricky question for us. There's a lot at work here. I have a feeling, though, that if I try to explain it any further that you won't believe me, and I wouldn't blame you in that case. The simplest explanation, until we find some conclusive evidence to prove otherwise, would be MPD. Isn't that what it's called?"

"It's called DID now. Dissociative Identity Disorder."

"I see." Quiet amusement, and hands folded behind his head. "Well, let's just go with that."

Pen scritching furiously. "And you say that you were the one who tried to kill yourself?"

A mocking pout. "Not quite so simple, my dear. Edgar is in a bit of denial. He may as well get a permanent home in Egypt. No, I didn't try to kill him. Edgar tried to kill himself, and I stopped him. I took control long enough to take care of the wounds. It wasn't the first time, or the last time."

Pen still moving. "You're both telling me different stories."

Leaned forward again with his chin on his hands, a broad smile, and the skin around the ragged hole of an eye crinkled.

"That's right, and I tell you now that the one you can, and should, trust in our demented little farce here is me."

"I should trust you?"

Slow incline of his head, and his fingers dug into the flesh of his cheek.

"Oh, you can trust me completely."

~~~

They took away his shoelaces. He hated how it felt, to have the tongue constantly falling out and beating against him, tapping and flapping and it brought so much attention. Or it should have. It should have and it didn't, that's what bothered him. The flap flap of walking and nothing. Some got rubber bands to hold the tongue in place, but he was denied them, not after what Scriabin tried to do with them.

Voluntary, he had always been and would always be voluntary in all aspects of his life obedient and supple and yet there was this resistance, this urge to fight. Not enough to be discharged but enough to make things difficult. Scriabin explained it to him several times, convinced each time he forgot, about how the staff were doing everything all wrong. He had promised Edgar that they would get help, help from someone else, and yet Scriabin couldn't bear to let anyone else do much of anything. No one was capable of taking care of him _correctly_ as far as Scriabin was concerned, and Scriabin was more than willing to make that clear to anyone and everyone who was listening. They hated the question "why" so that was Scriabin's new favorite word.

Edgar found that he didn't care. No matter how hard Scriabin tried to goad him into caring, it didn't work. He found sleeping becoming more attractive, spent more time in the world of his dreams where things made a lot more sense and he felt happier there. That feeling he had that something was amiss, something was wrong, stopped when he dreamed. They regulated the time he spent though and he didn't sleep as much as he wanted to, or he had before according to Scriabin. 

Scriabin often took control, to give him rest he said. Edgar still didn't care. He knew some time ago that once it did matter, once it was a matter of contention between the two of them, a constant battle, but now Edgar just let it go. He let everything go, and let hands guide him from one activity to the next without any stirring of emotion. When Scriabin took over, Edgar dreamed quietly. He so often dreamed of Johnny, but when Scriabin had his body, he mostly dreamed of him. That at least pleased Scriabin on some level, as he knew it would. Some old memory told him that it would, although he couldn't put it into words.

He wanted Edgar's affection, so Edgar gave it to him. It was required of him and he did what was required of him because he didn't know what else to do. He had no motivation to do anything anymore, anything more than try to spend his time in dreams. To take hold of those few moments where things seemed real and clear and things didn't keep falling apart in front of his eyes.

He lay in bed at night, listened to his roommate talk to him, to someone else, and he held the edge of the blanket in his hands and over time a small thread had come to his finger's attention and try as he might he couldn't stop running over it, tugging on it slightly, pulling on it occasionally to reaffirm that it was there, and it got longer and longer and soon everything started to unravel.

Everything unraveling, and his fingertips were missing.

~~~

"Okay, who wants to start with check in today?"

Silence.

"No volunteers? Edgar, how about you?"

Turned his head and the room kept turning when his motion stopped. It moved slowly, slow enough so as not to be truly alarming. Turned his head and stared with one eye and he felt her waver far away in the distance, the motion sending ripples through the walls and air and his chair.

"What?"

"Tell us your name, how you feel, and what your favorite type of cake is."

Someone coughed, mumbled, talked, stared and the vibrations through the fabric around him worked through, and Scriabin was singing to himself somewhere inside him, singing a song over and over and over and over until the words were mixed up and the melody became the meaning, until the way he sang the words was the reality rather than what the words actually were. Repeating and repeating and repeating and it solidified, made the motion outside meaningless because inside at least he had a pattern that wasn't changing, wouldn't change.

"My name is Edgar Vargas..."

"Mmhmm." She sat with her hands in her lap.

_I like chocolate cake._

_What kind of chocolate cake?_

_There's such a thing as devil cake, isn't there?_

_Did we have it?_

_I want to have it. Say that one._

_Okay._

"Scriabin likes chocolate devil cake."

That minor look of displeasure, a visible sigh on her features and the room jerked around him, tendrils jabbed out from the walls at him and Edgar blinked slowly, found that his eyes felt heavy and natural when they were closed.

"What kind of cake do _you_ like, Edgar?"

"Scriabin?" Someone new said loudly, perhaps incapable of understanding how the volume of their voice affected their relations with others. "But didn't he say..."

The woman next to him patted his arm, leaned close and whispered and the man's eyes widened, and he was silent. Edgar still stared at the therapist, watched as the walls around her melted and formed, hands and fingers swirling around her head and her hair and pointing, grabbing, but never really touching. That was why that didn't frighten him anymore, that couldn't touch him. The butterflies still could though, but he hadn't seen them lately.

_What kind of cake do I like?_

Scriabin stopped singing reluctantly, and when he stopped his voice was hoarse and weak. _I don't know. Think about it._

_Vanilla?_

_Didn't you have a cake on your birthday...?_ and now Scriabin's voice was shaky and he sounded on the edge of tears, and neither of them knew why. Not unusual, as while Edgar's moods had leveled into an unnatural kind of apathy, Scriabin had been hit with mood swing after mood swing without explanation, and the lack of control over his own emotions was driving him crazy. Driving him crazy crazy crazy he told Edgar at night, and Edgar said what Scriabin wanted him to until he could settle and it stopped, and he stopped wanting to weep for reasons he couldn't remember anymore. _You had a cake on your birthday, didn't you? On our birthday, didn't you? Didn't you?_

_I did, I did have one..._

"Edgar, what kind of cake do you like?"

"Just skip him."

"Just be patient, Michael."

_What kind of cake was it?_

_I..I can't..._ Scriabin choked for a second. _Vanilla?_ So desperate to be correct.

_That sounds right._

"Vanilla cake."

"Okay." She wrote it down. "And Edgar, how do you feel today?"

The room had stopped spinning, although the long extensions of the walls and floor kept coming and stretching around him and everyone. The table's legs bent and moved and flowed into the floor, into colors that blurred into things he couldn't name, but the room wasn't moving at least and that was a plus because that meant he usually wouldn't get sick.

Back to singing again, his voice stuttering on words.

"Do you want how Scriabin feels too?"

A pause, and everyone fell into shards and fell together again, and nothing happened.

"Just you, Edgar."

_My feelings count,_ Scriabin whined. _You know they do._

_I know they do. We'll tell her later._

"I feel..."

He stared at his hands, white lines that traced over his knuckles and he couldn't bear to study the damage done to his fingers, not anymore. He couldn't remember, couldn't think of any reason, how it happened and Scriabin's story kept changing, kept changing and whenever he started crying, Edgar lost his train of thought and he could never find the right car to get back on again and he was lost.

"I feel lost."

"Lost? How do you feel lost, Edgar?" She wrote it down.

"I can't remember anything that happened to me. I can't remember why I...or when I...or anything important."

"You feel lost without your memories."

"Something's moved on without me, something left and I never could get back on, find it again. I couldn't find where I was supposed to go and then the train pulled away, and I left my bag inside because I was in a hurry and I don't know where it is, I don't know where it went or how to find it...I don't have a claim ticket for it..."

"Mmm." She wrote it down. "I'm sorry to hear that, Edgar. How do you think you can find what you're looking for again?"

He ran a hand through his hair, and the room snapped back into four walls and a floor and ceiling and furniture and people. His hand caught the strap of his eyepatch for a second and jostled it and he could sense the hesitation from the therapist, not wanting to see it again and he touched it with his other hand and made sure it was still in place. He took a deep breath and it burned somewhere in his chest, and Scriabin began singing again. An old song that Edgar remembered from a few years ago. Played, burned into his memory regardless of whether he liked it or not, and he found that happened more than he would have liked.

_If I want more peace in the world, I must make peace with myself...if I want more trust in the world, I've got to trust in myself...if I want more love in the world, I must show more love to myself...'cause I want to change the world._

_I want to make it well._

At his response Scriabin's voice cracked, harshly and he didn't even try to stop it, and from what Edgar could feel he caught a maelstrom of sadness and despair and frustration and longing and regret and so many things that he experienced now that may or may not have been his to begin with. The lines got so blurry between them, so blurry and so defined in other ways and Scriabin's words were desperate and out of place for how little Edgar had cared for the song originally. _How can I change the world when I can't change myself? I'd love to change your mind, capture your citadel, how could I change your mind if I can't change myself?_

He seriously tried to think of the answer and his thoughts matched what would have come next anyway. _Try again tomorrow..._

Edgar remembered hearing the song while he was cleaning the kitchen alone and the radio was on blaring and staticy and occasionally one speaker would go out and he choked hard, and he hid his eyes because he knew he was crying but he didn't know why.

"Edgar, are you okay?"

He shook his head, and Scriabin made soft hushing sounds in his mind.

"Do you want to leave Group for now?"

He shook his head again, felt himself beginning to shake hard and his throat constricted, and the room was close enough to touch and it was breathing all over him.

"We'll get back to you. Richard, would you like to go next?"

_Do you want to rest for a while?_

_I want my life back,_ he sobbed. _I want, I want I want to see Johnny, I want to know that there's something left._

That soft, resigned sigh. _I'll take care of it, I'll take care of you. He abandoned you but I won't. Go ahead and rest, I'll take care of it. We're going to get through this, okay?_

_Nnn._

_We're going to get through this, aren't we? We're working to make it better, we're working to make it better, aren't we? We can fix it._

_I hate this, I hate this I hate this_

_Shhh. Go ahead and rest. You'll feel better in a little while._

Someone touched his shoulder, to ask again if he was okay, and Edgar fell asleep.

~~~

"You said that wasn't the first attempt?"

"No. He tried again, later. He tried to hang himself in the shower."

Pen scritching.

"Who did this?"

"Edgar did it. I woke up later. The yarn wasn't strong enough to hold his weight, I suppose. Got some bruises for it."

"You don't want to die?"

"... _I_ don't."

"So none of these attempts you think were your fault?"

"...No, I never attempted it."

"Did you ever think about it? Plan it out?"

"I..." A moment where he seemed temporarily lost, and then his composure was back. "Things get kind of hazy for me, dear. I'm sorry, but our memory isn't quite what it used to be. We've been through a lot, the boy and I, and I think we've suffered a bit of damage for it. More than physical, you understand. I don't exactly remember doing it, but I wrote down some things. I suppose I may have at one point."

Pen scratching against the paper.

"Did you ever feel homicidal?"

"Homicidal?" Quiet amusement.

"Did you ever feel you presented a threat to others?"

Leaned forward and the skin around his wounds pulled and stretched. "Oh, I'm sure I was. I possibly still am."

Stared at him and he smiled.

"Like I said...things get hazy."

~~~

Take this sheet of paper, and mark all the boxes that apply to you.

The pencil spun around his fingers, from one to the other and he could still do that, he could still do that even when it began to fly apart. He had to slow down at that point, but he could spin it fast and the fact that he could was so important, so very important because

Spinning and spinning.

Looking down the list of attributes, of little positive things.

Creative? No.

Natural leader? No.

_Do I get to take one of these?_

_You can do it after me._

_Okay, I'll circle mine. You check yours._

Brave?

He'd come back to that one.

Math skills? Enough. A checkmark.

Sense of direction? As far as he was aware. A checkmark.

Loyal? Check.

Compassionate? Half a checkmark, and then his fingers stopped moving. Moved on.

Sensitive? Not really.

Intelligent? A check, with the minor concern of egotism that was swiftly wiped away.

Calm? Check.

Friendly? No.

Social? No.

Independent? Check.

Energetic? No.

Athletic? No.

Talkative? No.

Musical talent?

_I can play the piano._

_I can't._ No.

Loving?

The pencil sank into his skin, and at that point he started screaming and after that

~~~

"Do you think that if you were on your own, you could take care of yourself?"

A smile.

"Do you consider yourself gravely disabled?"

"My dear." Arms held high, twisted so each deep scar was clear. "It's become obvious to us both, me and my dear boy, that we cannot do that. Not anymore."

Checked the box for "insight regarding present illness."

"You're determined to get well then?"

"Of course."

Another check.

"But you don't consider yourself capable of living independently now?"

"No, I don't think so." Smiling still. Wrist showed in the light, and angry lines crisscrossed over long trailing tendons and veins.

"What are your goals during your stay here?"

Tapped his chin in an exaggerated fashion.

"I suppose I'd prefer to live without constantly mutilating myself. Is that-"

"You and Edgar?"

A pause.

"Yes, me and Edgar."

"Why do you think you keep hurting yourself?"

Single eye moved just slightly, focused past her head and past the wall behind her, and his expression changed.

"I see things."

"Both of you?"

"Both of us. Both of us now."

"What kind of things?"

~~~

"Edgar, this is your new roommate. His name is Kirk."

"Krik?"

"Kirk."

"Oh."

~~~

He stood by the water cooler and stared at the paper cups until someone touched him. He felt the fingers on his shoulder, and then they sank through his arm and started touching his bones. He didn't like being touched.

"Edgar, what are you doing out here? It's quiet hours, you should be in your room. How did you get past the nurse's station?"

He couldn't speak, there was something in his throat and it'd escape if he said anything. It was thirsty. That was why he was staring. That or it liked eating paper. Possibly one of those.

"Edgar, are you listening? Can you hear me?"

He nodded, and he wanted his fingers out of his marrow. People didn't do that in his dreams. The cup he was staring at fell through the stack and fell onto the floor, and he watched it drop and spin and do a lovely swan dive before it vanished into the carpet.

"Are you...Edgar, are you seeing things?"

He nodded again. The thing was scratching through the back of his throat. Maybe it was tired of being with him. It was going to dig through the back of his neck pretty soon. Then maybe he could talk again.

"Hmm, and you'd been making so much progress with that...you took your meds today?"

Another nod and he felt the thing push his spine apart and walk out of his neck, and there was his voice. He worried for a second it would have taken it with it.

"I did."

"And you're still seeing things?" Almost sounded concerned, but that wasn't allowed. If it was there it had to be quick and meaningless and obviously so or else it traversed boundaries into therapy and that was bad. Edgar learned that from a sheet Scriabin had stolen while no one was watching him.

"Yes."

"Are you hearing anything?"

"No. Just Scriabin."

Scriabin, at the moment, was saying syllables that weren't easily matching up into words. Edgar wasn't sure if it was Scriabin's fault or his own that he couldn't understand what he was saying.

"Who's your doctor?"

"I don't know." He stared at a different cup. The Styrofoam began to peel apart, and a small white worm fell onto the carpet. He watched it fall, and this one didn't vanish. It wriggled back and forth unevenly, too close for his comfort.

"Let's see..." They gently took his hand and looked at the wristband there. Brightly colored and it had letters, but he wasn't reading at the time. "Dr. Ramon. I'm going to talk to him about your medication, okay? When you meet with him tell him what you're seeing. You might need something stronger than you're currently taking."

"Butterflies come from caterpillars, don't they?" The little worm wriggled against the carpet.

"Yeah, they do. Come on, you should be in your room."

"Good. Maybe they won't come after me here."

"Who won't come after you?" Led away from the water cooler, and he felt a breeze going through his neck.

"I don't want to make any more butterflies."

"Is that what you were working on in activities?"

"No."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want any more butterflies growing in my body. I've had enough of them."

"...Edgar, do you feel safe right now? In control?"

"No."

"Do you want to be alone?"

"I think so."

"All right, you can stay in the quiet room for now. Just tell someone when you feel safe again, okay?"

"That sounds reasonable enough." His head fell back and he watched the ceiling lights pass by one after another in his vision, and then they decided straight lines were boring and they were sliding across the wall, and he had to step carefully cause now they were on the floor and he didn't want to break any light bulbs or anything.

"I'll talk to Dr. Ramon. You talk to him too, all right?" Into the room and Edgar walked over to the corner and sat down, and he pressed his head against the wall and curled his knees against his chest and held onto his upper arms, and he shut his eyes. 

"Scriabin...Scriabin, snap out of it..." He breathed quietly, and in his contained little ball with his eyes closed the world around him stopped shifting and things stopped moving around and the wall stayed put.

"Just call us whenever you feel ready." The door closed.

"Scriabin..."

_Agha...what? What?_

_You were talking funny._

_Were you listening?_

_...I don't know._

_Did you need something?_

_I need you._

_...Oh._

_I'm seeing things again._

_I know._

_Just...just make things real for me._

_Say it again._

_I need you._

_And...?_

_I want you._

He pressed his forehead against the wall and his hands shivered. Not the first time he'd done this, and his responses were almost mechanical, definitely expected and required and he did what was required of him.

_And...?_

_I want you, I want you to hold me. Just, someone hold me, just anyone please, make everything stop moving around and just make everything, someone, I need to know, I need something real..._

_And I'm real to you..._

_Of course you're real to me. That's why I want you._

_Me..._

_Please...help me._

Satisfied. _Of course, Edgar. Of course I will._ Soft whispers, and he felt himself fading again. _Just fall asleep, and I'll do anything you want. It's up to us now, isn't it? It's always just been us, hasn't it? It always comes down to us..._

_So alone..._

_Shh. Come here._

~~~

Activities time, and Edgar had the chessboard again.

He didn't know how to play when he came, but he learned quickly. He found it suited him very well, the way he liked to think and how carefully he could calculate his moves and try to anticipate the future. He wished he had learned about it sooner, so he could have really gotten to know the game. Now he only knew what he learned from others, and something told him that there was so much more to this game than what he knew and could see. If he just had something to point it out to him, but...

He moved a pawn a space ahead, and folded his hands. Stared and waited, and he felt someone's momentary stare as they walked past him towards the table with the beads. He made a bracelet once, before he found out about the chess board. No scissors for him. Had to ask someone else to cut the string.

Stared at the board.

_A-7 to A-5._

Edgar reached over and moved the black pawn accordingly.

Stared at his own white pieces, scattered but these at least he could control. He could put these back together again, when it was all done.

His bishop slid across the board, took Scriabin's queen.

People watched him play. They probably wouldn't have if they weren't aware of his disorder, as they called it. But they did. They knew there was more to this than just a man playing chess with himself, and he supposed that was what fascinated them.

That or they wanted a turn.

_You left yourself open._

Thoughtful hum. Edgar at first worried that Scriabin would cheat, would read his thoughts to win, but apparently that kind of hollow victory did not appeal to him. It turned out that Scriabin was fiercely competitive. 

Who knew.

It was a challenge at least, a minor one that both could deal with.

_You've got to think ahead._

_I always think ahead._ Scriabin had some old hostility in his voice. _D-5 to E-3._

The knight took a pawn, sat just two squares away from Edgar's king, that empty square between making it untouchable. Mocking him.

Edgar rested his chin on folded fingers and stared hard. 

Minutes passed.

_And you always take so goddamn long._

_Maybe that's why I always win._

Scriabin grumbled, and Edgar's bishop again swept across the board, knocked away a rook. Just as he suspected he would, Scriabin would not let the attack go unreturned, and he swiftly countered with his king taking the offender.

Edgar moved his queen a few squares.

_Checkmate._

A pause.

_Shit!_ The genuine anger was enough to make Edgar smile. _Goddamn it!_

_I told you, you take too many risks-_

_I know exactly what I'm doing, it's just your moves make no sense! It's a stupid game anyway!_

Edgar tapped the battered tips of each his fingers. Three, two, one...

_I could beat you, if I wanted to. I'm just letting you win._

_Want to try again?_ He smirked, and before he responded he was putting the pieces back in place, and the people beside him stared.

~~~

"I don't know, I just feel...I felt so trapped, you know?"

"You felt trapped in your life, Henry?"

"I felt trapped everywhere, in my apartment, in- in everything-"

"Did you have someone to help you- Edgar, stop it please."

"Scriabin, thank you. And what am I doing wrong now?"

"You're being very rude to Henry right now, and I don't appreciate it. Could you please stop tapping your foot and listen?"

"Hmph."

"One more warning and you're out of here. Now, I'm sorry, Henry, what were you saying?"

"I just...I felt like I had no way out. I felt really...like I had no options."

"Did you have someone to talk to?"

"Not...not here. I just moved. I don't have any friends-"

"Oh, that's a big surprise."

"Scriabin!"

"What? I just said what we all were thinking-"

"That's it, you're excused from Group. I won't tolerate you being disrespectful to others."

"Fine, whatever. This whole thing is stupid anyway."

"He causing trouble, Mary?"

"He was just leaving, isn't that right?"

"Yeah yeah- hey! I can show myself out, thank you. I don't need an escort."

"...all right, now, you were saying, Henry?"

~~~

He was monopolizing the couch without a speck of shame, taking up as much space as humanly possible. One arm rested on his forehead, the other trailing on the floor, and he moved it back and forth slowly, let the fabric of his coat sleeve brush against the back of his hand.

They let him keep his coat. He'd gone to the hospital in it, after all. They pulled out all the straps and long pieces of it, and they wouldn't let him keep it in his room, but they let him have it when he asked.

Scriabin thought, with some pride, that it was because they didn't want him kicking up a fuss over it. He'd proven to be a nasty thorn in their side when irritated, and he found flouting their rules to be an amusing, harmless past-time.

He knew this place inside out, he knew everything they were trying to do, and he used that to his advantage.

Edgar in a dazed state, aware enough but not quite all there. Scriabin could talk to him now, if he wanted to, and Edgar would listen and maybe find the wits to respond, but he was mostly wrapped up in his daydreams. He did that a lot, recently.

_Anything you want to watch on TV?_ Scriabin wasn't watching TV, but some side of him wanted to bother Edgar, an old and instinctual desire to just be perverse and annoying because that's what he did.

_Huh?_ Edgar said sleepily. Scriabin still felt a strange kind of thrill, to hear Edgar's voice coming from where he usually spent his time. To know that they had switched places so thoroughly, and he had such control over him, over all parts of him.

_Anything on TV interest you, my boy?_

Edgar struggled to think, and Scriabin could still read him as easily as ever, even from the outside. Confused and tired. Edgar was always tired now, and Scriabin didn't exactly blame him, considering.

_Uh...um, no..._

_What are you thinking about?_ Scriabin knew already.

_Mmph...um..._ Edgar sounded so out of it. Maybe it was the meds. Scriabin doubted it though. _Muh...you, I guess._

No matter how he said it, the tone or circumstance, that still made Scriabin feel so good.

_Good to hear._ He looked up at the ceiling, watched the tiles waver a little and he narrowed his eyes. Shit. He really thought they'd stop this time.

As if to mock him, the tiles kept moving, shifting and they formed themselves into patterns that vaguely resembled piano keys, something like that or music or something, it was hard to connect with words because although the connection was clear, it didn't make sense. How can you have piano keys without black? Yet that's what the twisting above him was.

"Hey, move over."

Scriabin closed his eyes and waved a hand airily. "No, don't think so."

"Move your feet! God, you can't just take up the whole couch!"

"But, I'm afraid I already am." Scriabin mock-pouted. "What a pity."

"Edgar-"

"Scriabin! God!" A flash of rage that burned hot and fast and unexpected, and Scriabin was on his feet in seconds. The unfortunate who had riled him backed away immediately. "God-fucking-damn it, is it that _fucking_ hard to tell?!"

Michael, he now recognized, just glared at him. Scriabin's fists shaking and an intense realization of frustration, of everything that he had been enjoying just a few moments before having been torn away, ripped away, ripped into shreds because some people couldn't get his _goddamn name right_

"Fuck!" He shouted and kicked over a chair, because it would make a lot of noise and it was there. The chair hissed at him angrily, warped and changed again and Chair whipped a long thin tail and scurried through the wall, and he stared at its passage with an intense sense of jealousy. "Fuck it! Fuck you all!"

"What's going on here?" Uh oh, nurse. Jose, that was his name. Scriabin turned on him but then the room conspired against him and he was pretty sure he was on his back again.

_Don't cause any more trouble..._ Edgar mumbled somewhere, and Scriabin felt fairly sure that Edgar didn't even know what was going on.

_They keep getting it wrong godDAMN THEM_

_Just calm down..._

_God fucking- why the hell do I always start seeing shit when something important happens-_

"Edgar? Edgar, are you all right?" He caught something shifting above him and assumed it to be Jose. "Do you have to go to your room?"

"That'd be great, that'd be just wonderful. It's Scriabin you cocksucker by the way." He tried to move his arm and the window across the room moved instead. Wrong muscle apparently. "Why can't you people ever get one simple thing right-"

"Just calm down-"

The last thing he wanted to do at that point was calm down, and he tried again, different muscle this time and he was pretty sure he succeeded in doing something that Jose didn't like.

And, as was becoming more and more usual for him, it was back to the quiet room again.

~~~

He curled up in a plastic chair with a threadbare blanket around his shoulders, and bits of black showing between the edges.

"Are you cold, Edgar?"

He nodded slightly, kept his arms tightly wrapped around himself.

"Your blanket doesn't look like it's in good shape...want me to get you a new one?"

"I did this myself." Edgar stared ahead blankly, and he shivered. "I did this myself. I'll keep it."

"Hmm..." She tapped her pen against the paper. "Are you sure?"

"This is all my fault." He pulled the blanket tighter, kept his fingers curled tight and aching.

A moment for her to think.

"While it's good that you're taking responsibility for what's happening to you...it does no one any good if you don't have enough confidence in yourself to get yourself out again. You have to believe you can and will succeed, Edgar. You can't keep blaming yourself for everything. There are some things that aren't your fault."

"My f-fault." Knees to his chest. "F-fault."

_My fault..._

"You need to have faith, Edgar."

Stopped shivering, everything stopped and then he was staring at the ceiling in his room, and his coat was gone.

~~~

"Hello, Edgar."

"Hello."

"How are the meds working for you?"

"Hello."

"Yes, Edgar, hello."

"Hellooo..."

"Edgar..."

"Hellooo-o-o..."

~~~

"I heard that Dr. Ramon doesn't know what to do with him."

"That's stupid. Dr. Ramon's dealt with worse."

"I don't know, he's not getting better..."

Tapped the monitor, where a black and white feed showed a man lying on a stretcher in a locked room, asleep.

"The meds just haven't kicked in yet, that's all."

"You know, yesterday...we were in Group, and Scriabin started crying."

" _Scriabin_ did? No way."

"He did! I was as shocked as you. I didn't know he could do that. Certainly doesn't act like he can. All that macho posturing bullshit, you know."

"Yeah, I know."

"But it was definitely him, he talked like him and everything. He just burst into tears. Said that what happened was his fault."

"I think it was, actually. I don't trust Scri for a second."

"Well, me neither, but still. He just wailed for the rest of the group, about how if he had just done something different, he could have stopped this. All this stuff that didn't exactly make sense. You know that whole waste lock story he's got worked up?"

"Still believes in it, huh?"

"Yeah...but still. I told him to take care of himself afterward, and asked some of the others to try and look out for him."

"I don't think the others would care about Scri particularly. It's not like he's tried real hard to make friends."

"Yeah, I know. But they're okay with Edgar, mostly...God, you know, it's hard not to pity the guy."

"Think his roommate will help him out?"

"Depends on who he is."

Tapped the monitor again.

"How long's he been in there?"

"Since breakfast."

"Think he can come out?"

"Depends. He was hallucinating pretty badly."

"God..." Searched for words, failed, shook her head. "God..."

~~~

Sue came in to chart, and she saw Edgar sitting on the floor, his binder in hand.

"Edgar!" She looked around and found that at her voice, a few others nearby raised their heads. She walked closer and held out her hand. "Give me that, you're not supposed to see that. How did you get in here?"

"You spelled Scriabin wrong." Edgar pointed at one of the sheets, his voice mild. "I'm not an unreliable source of information, either."

"Edgar-"

"And I do have someone, a friend I can count on." Edgar looked up at her, and the eyepatch had moved just enough so that the edge of the hole was visible. Sue shuddered, and she could hear Jose coming down the hallway. "Nny's my support network. You should fix that."

"Of course, just give me back your chart, Edgar..."

"What's going on here?" Jose seemed just as surprised at Edgar's presence. "How did you get in here?"

Edgar looked back down at the chart in hand, flipped through the pages. "I don't remember signing these..."

Sue didn't want to antagonize Edgar, inspire potential violence, so she stayed back. Jose, however, dealt with this fairly often, and he came close enough to put a hand on Edgar's shoulder.

"Give me the chart, Edgar, and come on. I still don't understand how you keep finding your way in here."

"Look at all these seclusions..." Edgar flipped through a large section of goldenrod papers, each checked and signed with date and time. "I don't remember these."

Jose looked at Sue for a second, then hitched Edgar up to his feet. "I bet Scriabin got those. Don't you think, Edgar?"

Edgar looked at him as if he just realized he was there, and he nodded gratefully. "Yes, yes I think you're right."

Jose pulled the binder out of his hand and set it on the rack behind him, and Edgar didn't protest.

"There. Now come on, Edgar, it's quiet hours. You should be in your room."

Edgar nodded, and Jose slowly led him away. He looked back at Sue before he was out of sight and shrugged.

Sue looked at the binder, Edgar's name written on the spine with large black letters, and she shivered again.

~~~

Harry was turning the bracelet around his wrist, around and around, and he was listening.

"No!" Edgar said suddenly, loudly, and Harry sighed. "That's not true-, you don't-...God, you're impossible! You're doing this on purpose, you're just being-...it's very simple-"

How long had Edgar been doing this? How long would he keep doing it?

"How can you say that? ...Of course I didn't, you know I didn't. Don't you remember when you-...nng. Don't shout. You do remember, don't you? Don't bring that up, that's not even...mine WAS related! God, if you'd just stay on topic- don't call me that! I hate it when you call me that."

He wasn't sure what to do. How helpful could he be when all he heard was one side?

"Stop...don't say that. Please don't say that."

Harry didn't like feeling helpless, and when he saw Edgar arguing so vehemently with himself, he didn't feel afraid, but concerned. Responsible.

Which is why he lasted longer than the others.

~~~

_I can leave anytime I want._

_I don't think you should..._

_I don't like it here anymore. They don't treat me right. They're doing it all wrong._

_I don't think you should..._

_I'm leaving. They can't stop me. They won't stop me. They can't even see me. I'm invincible, invulnerable, invisible._

_Narcissist..._

_Shut up._

_They said that once._

_Shut up. They're wrong. They're wrong about everything. DID, where the hell did they get that, we told them what happened and they won't believe us. I can do better. I can fix it, I can fix everything. I don't need them, I don't need anyone. I can do this alone. I can do it because now I know what to do. I learned what to do. I don't need to stay here anymore._

_Maybe I should stay then..._

_Oh shut up. You can't. You're coming with me._

_Oh..._

_You know that. Jesus, what'd they put in you today?_

_In us..._

_Whatever. I've got the key. I've got the keys, they dropped them._

_You stole them._

_Doesn't matter._

Very assured in his ability to escape. So confident that when he fumbled with the keys, got them stuck in the lock and tried to figure out exactly what position to put them in to have them work, he didn't notice who came up behind him. A short struggle later, and the keys were gone, and he was out for most of the day.

Woke up, and it was Edgar's fault.

~~~

Sometimes, Edgar sat in the main room, near the doors to the unit, and he watched people come and go.

He had been marked as an AWOL risk fairly early on, so one of the nurses always kept an eye on him to make sure he wasn't trying to make a run for it.

He just wanted to watch, that's all. Eventually he somewhat pacified them by moving his chair further away from the door, so that he could still see what was happening but wasn't close enough to bolt easily.

So he sat there and played with a piece of string they let him have, although they had made a specific note to take it away from him when he went back to his room. He wrapped it around his fingers, let it slide through the gaps, and made the first stage in Cat's Cradle before he let it fall again. The motion became consuming, and he stared at the glass doors without too much attention.

A woman walked through them, talking busily with someone who was hidden behind her. She was talking about something that Edgar had no interest in, and therefore her words became meaningless gibberish. Behind her, he caught a glimpse of black boots with silver buckles, stripes and dark colors, and as he stood up in his chair, he saw him completely.

"Johnny!?"

Johnny turned to stare at him in complete surprise, which was an understandable reaction. Edgar found himself moving forward before he had even thought about it. Everything in his mind ground to a screeching halt except his body which moved without his knowledge.

Then arms circled around him, pulled him back and he started screaming, just saying his name over and over again.

Johnny stared, helpless, and the woman who was guiding him tried to explain, said something and held out a hand to keep Johnny where he was. Delusions, hallucinations, confused, dangerous.

"Johnny!" Stared. " _Nny!_ "

Then Johnny looked horrified, and at that point Edgar strained so hard against who held him that something popped somewhere, burst and that was the end of that.

~~~

A very thick mist of dust, clouded hard and fast and he coughed harshly.

"Are you okay?"

Coughed and couldn't get out words, and someone pounded his back. He opened his eye and he stared at old stained wood floorboards, scratched messages and debris and litter, and he felt someone's hand on his back.

He turned and Johnny stared at him.

"There's a lot of dust in here..." With a great deal of awkwardness, hesitance. The distinct impression of saying something because that was expected. 

Edgar stared at him for almost a minute, finally reached out a hand and touched his face even though it would probably get him smacked. That's what Scriabin said would happen.

"Are you real? Are you really here?"

Johnny sighed, deep and sad, and he pulled Edgar's hand away from him. 

"We've been over this. Yes, I'm here. I'm real."

"You're real?"

"Yes, Edgar." A hint of frustration.

Edgar reached up and touched his face, and felt the eyepatch resting on his cheek and the lines beneath his eyes, and the uneven blunted sensation through his fingertips.

"Am _I_ here?"

"Yes. Edgar...you were-, just a few seconds ago...did something happen? You were fine before...maybe you shouldn't help me with this."

"No no." Edgar rubbed at his one good eye frantically, felt it water against his knuckles and he reached out blindly for Johnny. "Don't leave, I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. I won't do it again. I didn't mean to. Just don't go."

"I'm not-" Every word made it clear how difficult this was for Johnny, and he reluctantly let Edgar's hand rest on his shoulder. "I'm not going to leave, Edgar, Jesus. You're just...a little...you're just not feeling...God, I don't know. You're not acting sane. There. I don't want to make this worse. I'm trying to help."

"Oh God..." Edgar tightened his grip on Johnny's shoulder, enough to prompt a surprised noise, and he drew Johnny close to him before he could resist. Edgar's body shook violently and he knew he was crying and he couldn't care less. "Oh God, you're here, you're really here, I didn't...you weren't, not after it all, it was all a dream, it was all some kind of horrible dream..."

_Isn't this wonderful? Isn't this wonderful, Scriabin?_

_...where are we?_

"I..." Johnny trying hard to quell his reaction, to keep his hands where they were and he let Edgar hold onto him, hug him like he had so long ago before. "God..."

He held onto him tightly because he was afraid and he had been afraid so long, and when he got something that he had wanted so badly, it only proved to exacerbate his fear. He shivered and felt those thin bones against his own, that chest rising unevenly, the claws on his back and he buried his face where Johnny's neck and shoulder met, and he waited for Johnny to take it away, to fix everything like he knew he would.

"It's all over..."

"There Edgar, it's all over now." Someone else ran a hand gently across his shoulder. "You'll just be asleep for a few hours, that's all. Just until you calm down."

He opened his eyes to find the neck had become a thin bed in a room too familiar, and if he had had the energy he would have started screaming.

Door closed and Edgar curled his body as tight as it could go, pressed until it hurt. 


	2. Stabilization

"Edgar?"

He snapped his head up, and he was sitting in the main room and it was Group time, and everyone was staring at him.

"What?"

"Are you all right, Edgar? You seem tired."

Edgar blinked several times. A gray blankness in his memory, the definite indication of something but he had no idea what. He had been doing something and now he was here.

"How long have I been here?"

"The whole time, Edgar. You just seemed to be drifting off a little, so I wanted to know if you wanted to go take a nap."

"The whole time?"

"Yes."

"How did I get here?"

"You walked in," Claudia said from across the room.

"Maybe Scriabin did it," Richard said, "and he just woke up now."

_Scriabin?_

_I..._

_Don't lie to me, don't lie to me now-_

_No no, it's not that it's just...I don't know. I didn't...I don't remember. I don't remember doing it. I don't think I did it._

_What happened?_

"Edgar, do you want to go back to your room?"

"How long...was Nny here? Did Nny come?" He stood up. "Is Nny here? I saw him-"

The man beside him stood, rested a hand on his shoulder. "Edgar, calm down-"

"Is he here?" More plaintive. "Is he here? I saw him, I saw him, please...I didn't-, I didn't just _see_ him-, he was really here, God, he had to be..."

"Harry, why don't you take him back to his room?" Mary said with genuine sympathy, and Harry moved his hand from Edgar's shoulder to his arm. Harry's touch at least didn't go into his bones, and for that Edgar was thankful.

"Did you see him? Please...please, someone had to have seen him..."

"It's okay..."

"I just want...I just want to see him, God, I was so close...he was right there, and he said...he said..."

"Shh, come on. You've been here the whole time." Harry led him gently away, his touch comforting and parental, and Edgar let himself go. "Don't you remember?"

Edgar started sobbing.

~~~

There were chopsticks in his mouth, and with that realization came a sudden burst of something, Chinese food he recognized.

_Edgar?_

Edgar sleepily looked up, became connected, and Scriabin stared across the table. There Johnny sat with his boots on the tabletop, a small container of food balanced in his lap and a pair of chopsticks likewise in his mouth.

_Where am I? Was I...when did...was that a dream? Is this a dream?_

"Edgar? You okay?"

"Scriabin," he said automatically. Johnny gave him a long, hard stare, and then turned back to the television with a quick jerk of his head.

_Is this...is this real? Was that real? Where am I? What's going on?_

_This isn't our home..._

_Wow, you're really helpful, aren't you? For god's sake, wake up for once!_

_Johnny..._ Soft and wondrous, and Scriabin bit down on the wood in his mouth hard.

"How long are you going to be here?" Johnny said with obvious resentment, and Scriabin found he could easily match it.

"What are you talking about?"

"You." Johnny rolled his eyes and his mouth curled for a moment in distaste. "How long until Edgar comes back?"

Scriabin stared at him, his eyes gradually narrowing and he pulled the chopsticks from his mouth and embedded them in a piece of meat in the container he realized he was holding.

"Fuck you." It was the first thing he wanted to say, so he said it. Not what he should have, not what he might have if he had thought about it long enough, but he found his ability to control his decisions was getting a little more shaky as time went by. " _I'm_ here now. It's me."

_Johnny..._

_Shut up!_ Fierce resentment that had died without constant fuel. Johnny was gone, he had been gone for so long, and Scriabin had worked over, accepted, was able to overcome some of his emotions regarding him since Johnny wasn't there to feed the flames, and Edgar's memories changed easily and unpredictably. _Shut up! You're pathetic!_

He felt Edgar's dull hurt, and he lapsed into silence. Beneath it, he knew the sentiment still remained. He wanted Johnny.

Shit, that's what he wanted.

Johnny didn't want to talk to him and kept his eyes on the television set.

"How long have I been here?"

"I don't know," Johnny said with some resentment. "You come and go."

Scriabin growled slightly, realized he'd have to rephrase his question. "No, _both_ of us. How long have we _both_ been here?"

Johnny still didn't look at him. "Edgar's been here for a month now. I hope _you_ aren't planning on staying around very long."

"I'll stay as long as I _fucking_ want to, you skinny bitch." Deep hatred, and Scriabin lifted the stabbed piece of meat and shoved it in his mouth as if it was some kind of act of defiance. He spoke around it, still trying to sound angry and eat at the same time. "If you want to talk to your precious Edgar, you better learn to get used to it. It's my decision if he'll talk to you or not. I control his life now, not you."

Johnny this time did turn to face him, and Scriabin found that his chopsticks were embedded in the back of his hand somehow. Johnny's expression was surprisingly mild, his head slightly tilted.

"Have you taken your meds today, Edgar?"

"What?" Scriabin tried to pull the wood out of his skin, and Johnny leaned over the table, bending over his boots in a way that would have at least been painful, if not impossible.

"It looks like you're seeing things again. Did you talk to your doctor about that? Who's your doctor?"

"What the fuck-"

It hit Edgar first, and he pulled in tight to protect himself and let out a shuddering wail of despair.

~~~

"Are you having strange dreams?"

Edgar jerked, fell out of his chair.

"Edgar, are you all right?" A hand lifted him back up, and he was shaking hard.

"I..."

"You said you were having some strange dreams. Is that the case? It could be helpful."

"Where am I..."

"You asked me for an individual session, don't you remember?"

"Where's Nny...?"

"...There is no Nny, Edgar. You know that."

He inhaled deep and let it out slowly.

"Did you dream about him? Is that what you were talking about?"

"Oh God, everything's falling apart..."

"What?"

"It's like...oh God, oh God." He held onto his shoulders. "I thought things were bad before, I thought things couldn't get worse they could only get better, and it is, it is getting worse, everything is getting worse oh God."

"How are they getting worse, Edgar?"

"I thought, I thought that the hallucinations, I thought that was as bad as it would get, I thought that would be the worst and maybe those little things where I wouldn't be sure where I was, where I wouldn't know and forget, but oh God, now, now this is so bad, this is so bad, I don't know where anything is, what anything is anymore, oh God it's all falling apart-"

"How are things falling apart?"

"I don't even know what's happening to me anymore, I don't know what's real, oh God, it's like, like every reality I know is collapsing and falling and breaking into pieces and I keep falling into one piece after the other, and I can't tell when I do it and when I get out, and oh God, God, God, God why won't it stop, how can this get any worse how could this possibly get any worse-"

"It's okay, Edgar, you're only short a quarter." Claws briefly on his shoulder, and Johnny held two cones of ice cream in his hands. "I think he'll let it go."

The clerk stared at them both, unamused, and Johnny sighed in an exaggerated fashion.

"It's just a quarter. We'll just look in the car for loose change, Edgar, it'll be fine."

The edge of the counter where the lottery tickets were pasted hit his forehead with a sharp sound, and he felt a long string connect his skin to the edge as he fell.

~~~

_Walking through the ways, the broken times. I'm figuring something out, slowly, surely. There is a logic to be found, a pattern to be seen. We just have to find out what it is, make the best of where we are._

_God, what's the illusion? What am I dreaming and what's real? I don't know if I'm asleep or awake, and I used to know and that's why it was so important._

_It doesn't matter what's what, it matters how we react to it, my boy. Come here, come closer to me. How we react may determine our future, and I think that's what's most important._

_Ngh...I can't...this isn't...I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. What's going on? Where are we?_

_If I'm touching you..._

_Oh..._

_If I'm touching you, then where else could we be?_

_O-oh..._

_There's little in life that's real, is there? Little that's really positive. Permanent, I mean. Little that's permanent. I found that out before in various nasty little ways, and that book was just a big part of it. Didn't let you keep that. No wait, didn't we burn it? Doesn't matter._

_Ah..._

_What matters is that we need to, hmm, find a way to get around this. We need to find a way to adjust. Like you said, multiple realities, and we keep falling in and out of them._

_Then, then where are we now?_

_I suppose we get our breaks now and then, don't you think? Not sure. Perhaps nowhere, perhaps someplace or another._

_Nnh, I don't, I don't believe in it, I don't believe in this multiple reality thing, one of them has to be real, something has to be real or I'm just not seeing it, something is real and something is fake, they can't both be real, this can't be happening..._

_Hmm...well, you can believe what you like. It doesn't change what's happening though, does it?_

_A-ah, I'm..._

_Just you and me, as always. Even when reality itself is tired of us, it always ends up with just you...and me..._

_Hnn, I...ah..._

_Been a while, hasn't it? We'll figure something out...I'll figure something out. Play each reality, nnf. Play them as they come, go with what works. Ah, just you and me, isn't that right? Heh, isn't that right..._

_Oh God..._

_Let's not forget that, ah, shall we? With all this, there, all this reality nonsense going about...let's not forget what's important. Me._

_Aah! P-please..._

_Us then._

_I, I don't-, I'm, I'm not-_

_Ah, god, mmm. You're so...you're so much better than the others I've had._

_You've had-_

_Nnf. Hmm, you react..._

_Ah..._

_Just the way..._

_Aaah..._

_I want..._

_Scria-aaa-ah-!_

_Heh. Mph, god, Edgar, you are-_

_Unh-_

_Such a, nnf...a fantastic fuck._

_Nnnnn, s-stop, stop it, I...I just, just, I just want..._

_I know what you want._

~~~

"Hey Ed, you want to go the pool?"

_Where am I now?_ He moved his hands and ran into a bush.

"Ed, come on, man. Do you need some help?"

It was the activity therapist, a lively guy who was always very friendly. Edgar liked him, and he liked Edgar. Scriabin was a different story, but maybe it had the same beginning and just a different ending.

He came and helped Edgar to his feet.

"C'mon man, you've got to be more careful. You want to come to the pool?"

"What was I doing?"

"You were petting the cat."

There it was, near his feet, tail flicking occasionally. Edgar pulled closer to the AT's side, and he laughed and led him away.

"How long was I out here?"

"I don't know, I just came out to check on you."

"Have I always been here?"

"What, in the hospital? I don't think so. You've been here a while though."

"Was I...did I leave?"

"I don't know. You'll have to ask your doctor about when you can get discharged."

"Nny..."

"Hey Harry, would you mind keeping an eye on Edgar for me? He's your roomie, isn't he?"

"Yeah-"

"I think he's feeling a little out of it. Just make sure he's okay, all right?"

"All right."

Edgar sat by the edge of the pool, and Harry rested his arms on the cement beside him, kicked his legs without too much effort.

"You okay?"

"I don't know where I am anymore..." Edgar stared at the blue water.

"It'll be okay, all right?" Harry put a wet hand on Edgar's knee. "Don't worry about it. You'll be okay."

Edgar leaned back and stared at the sky until his eyes hurt.

~~~

_Nngh...god, did they put me under again? My head hurts...there's a jackhammer going, my god Christ, someone's pounding on a piano or something. Shit, Edgar never should have gotten that book about that guy, it's all I can fucking think about now fuck my head..._

Something shifted against his chest, sharp and pricking through his shirt, and he should have felt a bit more alarmed but his head hurt too much to react that quickly. 

"Where am I...?"

Someone pressed against his back moved, they straightened, moved an arm, sat up.

"Edgar...?"

He rolled over, saw Johnny propped up on his arms, his eyes still dark-rimmed and exhausted.

"I'm Scriabin."

Johnny stared at him for a little while longer, and he got out of bed. Scriabin managed to force himself up on his arms to watch him navigate the dark room with strangely practiced ease.

"I'm staying on the couch," Johnny said before he shut the door behind him. Scriabin fell back against the pillow, and when he dug a bit deeper, he found the same kind of longing that infuriated him from Edgar. The quintessential quiet desire that typified his interactions, holding out his hand towards Johnny as he left but never saying anything, never making it more blatant than a simple, pathetic, unseen gesture.

_You don't need him. Stop it._

At his voice Edgar recoiled in obvious fear, tried to hide but he wasn't good at it, not like Scriabin was. _I didn't mean..._

_Fuck you._

Edgar kept further away, and he thought that Scriabin couldn't hear him anymore.

_Nny..._

He was going to pay for that, Scriabin would see to it.

~~~

Harry had his arms pinned behind his back to keep Edgar from slamming his head into the wall again.

"Edgar, calm down-"

"Why" was the word that Edgar had been chanting nonstop for almost an hour now. Harry had been here some twenty minutes. Edgar's forehead was bleeding and his glasses had been knocked askew, and still his body moved to hit the wall again but Harry kept him back.

"Why, why, why, why-"

"Maybe he'll come later-"

No change in Edgar's mantra, just the same word repeated over and over again, and despite his struggles Harry did not let him go.

~~~

_Please, please, please stop_

_Nngh_

_Scriabin, please, please don't, d-don't do this_

_Shut up._

_Nngh, no, no, Scriabin, no, please..._

_Nnf._

_Please, ah, ah- a- agh, you're, you're hurting-_

_Do you think it's an accident? Don't tell me what I already know._

_Why, agh God, why, please_

_Say what I want to hear._

_Gkk, s-stop, I don't, I don't want, I don't want-_

_It doesn't fucking matter what you want. What you want means shit to me._

_...nnngh..._

_Now say what I want to hear._

_Please...please, stop..._

_No._

_Aagkkha-! Aaaah, don't! Don't-! Oh God, please, please-!_

_And you were so proud of it when you first did it. I liked it better when it was bleeding anyway._

_Ungh, please, please stop oh God please please stop oh God stop st- kkkgh, please_

_Mmph!_

_AGK-_

_Say it. Say it._

_...gkk, m-my...you..._

_Do you really want to make me angry? Really angry? I don't think you do._

_I-I'm not, not trying to make you angry-_

_Then why do you keep doing it? You bring this on yourself._

_Aggk-! Stop...stop, please, don't hurt me anymore..._

_Say what I want to hear._

_Hnnnn...you, you're...nngh, ah, I-I'm sorry..._

_Say it like you mean it._

_Nnn-n..._

_Say it like you mean it._

_I didn't-, please stop-_

_Say it._

And if there was any mercy, oh God, oh God, sick and clenching and choking and thinking, thought realized fear actualized and God, please God why, why was he _getting used to this_ -

~~~

Edgar stared out the window, and the trees shifted abruptly, sharply, into colors and crayons, and he was staring at a piece of paper on the floor.

"Are you okay, Mr. Edgar?"

"Todd?" Confused but that was nothing unusual. He looked up and it looked like Johnny's house, but there was Todd, sitting with a crayon in hand, a stuffed bear in the other, and a sheet of white paper on the floor.

"Yeah. Are you okay?"

"What are you doing here? What am I doing here?"

"Shmee says it's okay to be confused." Todd let his hand travel in loops across the page on the floor. "I've been here for a while now."

"Where's Johnny?"

"Who?"

"Where's...where's your neighbor?"

"I don't know," Todd said with obvious fear. "He's not coming over, is he?"

"Isn't this his house?" Edgar was sitting he found, and he looked down at the floor to see a sheet of paper at his own feet, and a crayon in his hand, and his fingers felt waxy.

Todd tilted his head. "Mr. Edgar, are you okay?"

He stared at the sheet of paper. A house on fire, flames and walls all black. Little words jumping out the windows, trying to escape. Delusion had been so badly burnt by the fire it looked like deluge.

Todd turned back to his sheet of paper.

"Shmee says..."

"Where am I?"

"Things are getting a little strange..."

"Where am I?"

"But they can't be this way forever, that's what he says."

"Todd, what am I doing here? How long have I been here? Have I been doing this all day?"

"You've always been here, Mr. Edgar." Todd smiled, and he held up his drawing. "You're acting kind of like Mommy does."

Edgar stared at the sheet of paper, and it reflected. 

"Priority."

~~~

Sat up awake in bed, breathing hard and fast and he pressed a hand to his chest, clutched his fingers shut.

"Oh God, please!" Spoke between breaths coming too fast, too hard, and his heart beat wildly. "God, make it stop! Make it stop, where am I? Where am I? What's going on? Where am I?!"

_At least it isn't who am I-_

"Edgar, you're here! You're safe, you're safe, calm down." A voice from beside him in bed. He already felt the initial preemptive hatred Scriabin bore for Johnny coming to the surface, then the light flared on, bright and burning and he covered his eyes. Warm hands on his shoulders, around his hip, and he was pulled close to a body that fairly radiated heat. Arms settled around him, strong enough to make his shaking stop and his breathing slow. "God, it's okay. It's okay, you're here with me. It's all right. Everything's all right."

A soothing mantra until Edgar felt like his heart was under control, a soft voice that made him feel peaceful, something familiar that he had longed to hear, that he had missed so dearly and he didn't know, not until now. Soft words and a hand gently running through his hair. 

"Are you okay? You've been having nightmares for weeks."

Edgar opened his eyes.

Jake tilted his head at him, and a piercing caught the light. "Are you okay? I'm worried about you, man."

Edgar stared and he would have said something if his heart hadn't been perched right on his tongue, blocking all air.

_Jake..._ Just as surprised, almost reverent, and then fearful silence. _Does he..._

Jake kept him close, let his head rest on his broad chest and Edgar stared into the bed sheets, his heart now resuming its frantic pace. Jake's arms around him, pulled him together and close.

"J-jake...?"

"That's right."

"So..." And then he realized, the fear hit him hard and fast and blinding and he returned Jake's embrace as tightly as he could. "Oh God, don't leave, don't you leave too, don't let this be a dream, please..."

"Mr. Edgar, are you okay?"

Wax all over him and he spasmed violently, and he heard his voice join with the one in his mind.

_Please God, I can't take much more of this-_

~~~

"How long has he been out?"

"Well, we gave him two shots-"

~~~

"Edgar, how do you feel today?"

"I feel...lost."

~~~

"They told me my daughter is dead, but I know she isn't." Harry sat on his bed across from Edgar's, looked at him with a sense of intensity and determination he could not hope to have. "I know I'll find her again, I know she's out there. She's in danger, she's in so much danger. I have to rescue her. They tell me she's dead, but I know she isn't. She's trapped."

"Where?" Edgar had his blanket in his hands and the thread was wrapping around his fingers and it cut deep and his fingers were slowly dying. "Where is she?"

"There's this other world. Sometimes, you can see it." Harry sounded so serious. "This world, this world we know, is being invaded by this other world. That's where she is. The other world has grabbed her, taken her away. They're going to hurt her, I know it. I can't let that happen, I'm her father. I've got to protect her."

"You've got to protect her."

_I'll do that for you. I'll protect you._

_What?_

_That's what you want, I felt it._

"She's trapped in that other world, and I can hear her calling me sometimes." Harry clenched his fists. "She's not dead, I know it."

"She's not dead." Edgar believed him, and the threads pulled across his paling skin. "She's not dead, you'll find her again."

"And you...Edgar, you'll be okay. We'll be okay in the end, I know it." Harry got up, went to sit by Edgar. "We can make it through. You've just got to be determined. You've got to be able to go through Hell for it, but we'll survive. You'll survive."

"I don't know where I am..."

"But where are you going?"

"I don't know..."

"What do you want?"

"I don't know..."

"Well, that's your problem." Harry put a hand on his shoulder. "You've got to know what you want, otherwise you're just fumbling in the dark."

~~~

_Ah, God..._

_Just a little...there._

_O-oh, oh-! I-...I sho-..._

_Quiet._

_Aaah!_

_Ah, there, yes..._

_Oh God, oh G-god-_

_Yes, yeees..._

_Oh God, who are you?_

~~~

He felt as if he was breaking, stretching, going too far. A rubber band stretched across too much too long, and his entire self was shaking, quivering.

_Scriabin-_

_I'm trying, I'm trying-_

_What's going on-_

_Where are we now?_

_Scriabin, what's going on?_ Edgar was sitting on a couch and Johnny was sitting on his legs, watching the television. _Oh God, what's going on?_

_I'm not sure-_

_Is this real? Am I dreaming this? God, is this all some kind of horrible nightmare?_

_Shit, at this point Edgar, I fucking hope so._

Johnny turned to look at him. "Edgar?"

Edgar stared for a few moments, made sure that he wouldn't move.

"Uh...yeah..."

"Are you okay?"

He'd heard that question so many times recently, it was losing its meaning.

"I...I don't know."

"Are your legs asleep? I could move. You were just napping and I didn't want to wake you up."

"No, no, I'm fine..."

"You sleep a lot..." Johnny kept his eyes on the television, but it was obvious in his words that he wasn't paying attention to it. "How can you do that?"

"Was I sleeping...?"

"I mean...just to be gone that long...and maybe when you wake up, it's all gone. Everything you knew was gone, or different, and you don't know what's real. I couldn't do that. It...no."

"Maybe sometimes it'd be better that way..." Johnny turned to look at him. "It'd be better if things were different when you woke up..."

"Oh, here..." Johnny reached over to one side, picked up a small black thing. "Here, you took it off before. Do you want it?"

He held out Edgar's eyepatch.

~~~

_God, what is this, what's going on, are we just dreaming this? Is this just everything we want? Are we dying? Is that what this is? Are we just reliving memories all out of order? These aren't memories, it's the future or the present but not the past..._

_Jake..._

_This is like, like something...I don't even know anymore, I don't know what's happening...I must just be imagining this, I'm imagining all of this, that must be it, that must be it..._

~~~

"Edgar!"

"Todd?"

"Edgar, get back here!"

They were wheeling in the latest addition to the pediatric unit, strapped down on a stretcher regardless of how necessary that really was. A small boy with large eyes and a stuffed bear, and he stared at Edgar as he went by.

"Todd!"

"Mr. Edgar!" Todd said with some mixed emotions, and the two who were accompanying him turned to see what was going on. "Mr. Edgar, what are you doing here?"

"Todd, what are, why are you here-"

"Edgar, get back here-!"

"Mommy and daddy," Todd managed to get out before the stretcher was on its way again, and Edgar was getting pulled back to join the rest of his own group.

"Todd..."

"Edgar, you can't just go darting off, do you want to go down a level and get back on unit restriction?"

"God, he's here too..."

~~~

_Everything, everything fell apart at one moment, that's when things went wrong. Something is the key here, something will explain what's happening, we have to find out what it was or what triggered it._

_Everyone's going insane..._

_Not necessarily._

~~~

"I want to talk to Edgar."

How important were memories, really? Severely disoriented and he wobbled, but Johnny's hands on his shoulders stopped him from falling backwards.

"What?"

"I want to talk to Edgar. Let me talk to him."

_Nny...?_

And that jealousy reared up, fierce and angry and Scriabin smirked in a way he knew would be particularly maddening.

"Nope."

And Edgar didn't even argue, he just sighed softly.

_Nny..._

"Let me talk to him!"

"Ah, nope nope." Scriabin started laughing then, and he wasn't sure why. Maybe just how much control he had over both of them, over himself, just felt so good and exhilarating. "You didn't say the magic word."

"What's the magic word?"

Scriabin held up his own crayon drawing, and Todd stared at it.

"Oh, that word." Todd turned back to his own drawing. "I know that one already, Mr. Scree."

"Scriabin, kid."

"Shmee says the word isn't magic." Todd drew off the page onto the floor. "He says you make it magic."

"Do I?"

"Yup." He drew right up Scriabin's leg, marked a smiley face on his thigh.

"Let me talk to Edgar! I know he can hear me! I know you can let him!"

Snap snap snap, from one reel to the next, abrupt and hard like he slammed to a stop.

"This is getting old..." Scriabin felt dizzy. "You might want to get out of the way, I think I'm going to be sick."

~~~

_Where are we? Where are we?_

_Please make it stop, make it stop, make it stop-_

~~~

"Edgar, how do you feel today?"

"I feel...lost."

~~~

"Did you ever know a Julie?"

"Julie?" The little boy pushed himself off from the tree, swung a bit on the bit of wood at the end of a long rope.

"Yeah, did we know a Julie?"

"I dunno." The boy spun in circles, fell off. Edgar went and picked him up again, and he found small arms tight around his neck. "Wait, I think I do."

"Who was she?" Edgar picked him up, let his legs settle around his waist and his face was hidden.

"She said you were gay in class once."

~~~

"Edgar, you've been hallucinating pretty severely," the cat in the lab coat said. It put a paw on his forehead, leaned his head back to look in his one eye. "I think you might be having some kind of adverse reaction to the medication."

"Where am I?"

The cat sighed. "You're very disoriented. I'm going to change what I've been giving you, all right? Hopefully that will help. It doesn't mention any previous allergies or bad reactions here beforehand...it would have helped if you told someone what was going on earlier."

"Was I always here?"

"Yes, Edgar. Now-"

"Joel?"

The cat stopped and stared at him.

"...Did I tell you my first name?"

"I thought I killed you."

~~~

The little boy clung tight to his neck, shivered and the thunder outside roiled and rumbled. Rain pounded against the small house and Edgar shivered underneath his blankets with his brother hanging on tightly, and the storm raged as if he had done it some kind of personal wrong.

"This is it, t-this is it..." Scriabin stammered, and Edgar tried to hold the flashlight steady in the dark to stop the shadows from leaping out at him. If he let his guard down, they'd come after them both, and the thunder would just cover the sound... "Edgar, this is it..."

"What? What's it?"

Thunder shook the ground, penetrated the air and eardrums, made Scriabin hang onto him tightly as he would be shaken free, and he felt his heart beating frantic and hard.

"Edgar, Edgar, remember, remember, the collapse, _collapse_ , _this is it_ -"

The flashlight's batteries went out.

~~~

He walked up to get his lunch. 

He asked for a taco. The woman stared at him. Stared and then she blurred into static, so he reached under the safeguard and got the taco himself.

~~~

"Edgar, are you all right?"

Hand against his forehead, and he stared at the ceiling above.

"Where am I now...?"

"You're in your room, you've been in here for days." He recognized that voice. Harry. It figured that Harry would have stuck by him. "You've been pretty bad."

"God, I've been...I've been dreaming, I think..."

"It sounded like it. You were screaming a lot...are you sure you're going to be okay? I'm worried about you."

"I'll be okay...if everything would just stop for a few seconds, I'll be okay..."

"Good..." Harry's hand grew cold and slick, and it curled around Edgar's palm. "It's been so long since we've visited each other. It's nice to see that you prepared dinner."

Edgar screamed as he felt the thick cords of flesh wrap around his body, his legs and arms in a way he wished he didn't know.

"Not again-!"

But this time, this time there was something different.

He caught the flurry of wings, something like a bird and feathers whirled through the air, and then there was a flash of red and his other eye was gone, and that was it.

He was blind.

~~~

_Edgar! Edgar! Can you hear me?_

...

_Edgar, where are you? I'm here! I'm here, come back to me! Can you hear me? Edgar, please!_

_It didn't..._

_No, it didn't! And it won't, not as long as I'm here! Edgar, where are you?_

_I'm tired..._

_No! No, don't you dare! Don't you dare, get back here!_

_I'm so tired, this...I can't do this anymore..._

_You can and you will, you can and you will-_

~~~

Blood was a lot darker than they show it in the movies. It wasn't bright red at all. Seeping out into the water, in the darkness. Dreams or reality.

Skin really did float in water.

"Edgar, you're having a nightmare..."

~~~

"Edgar, you're having a nightmare. Wake up!"

~~~

"Edgar! Edgar, wake up!"

~~~

"Mr. Edgar? Mr. Edgar!"

~~~

"Edgar! Edgar!"

~~~

Acute acute acute acute

"Everything stop! Just STOP!"

"Stop what?"

~~~

_I can't do this anymore-_

_Yes you can- yes you CAN_

~~~

"Scriabin, if you're going to keep distracting the others, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"I'm...what?"

"Stop tapping your foot please, it's distracting."

"Yeah, you're always twitching. Cut it out."

"Richard."

"So...I've been here...?"

"We're talking about journeys today, Scriabin."

"What journeys?"

"The journey you make through life. Your stay here at the hospital is a journey, and it's up to you to make the best of it. It's up to you to best use your time here."

"...I think I need to change my meds."

"Have you talked to your doctor?"

"I...I haven't seen him since..."

~~~

Found Edgar curled up in a small ball, so frightened by even the possibility of an attack that

Scriabin warded it off that time, Scriabin did a good job. He did a good job, and he was so relieved to see Edgar again that he hugged him, and then one thing led to another and he did something that one of them regretted later on, but he wasn't sure which one it was.

And he wasn't sure what it was he did.

~~~

"How could you let him do that to you?"

His eyes opened and burned, and he shut them again.

"Oh sorry, the light. Lemme get that...there." Shut off, and merciful darkness. "But Edgar...seriously. Why did you let him do that to you?"

No question he could ask would explain where he was. He stayed silent instead, and a hand touched his chest, traveled up to his cheek and brushed against the scars beneath his eyes.

"You don't deserve it, you don't deserve to have someone who hurts you like that...even yourself. Why do you let it happen?"

"Jake...?" Edgar rolled over, identified his voice. He found his forehead pressed against Jake's neck, and his arms settled around him.

"Yeah?"

"Just..." It wouldn't last, each blink took him further away. Joint desire and a joint attraction and it was rare and overpowering, to have the two of them agree on something for once. "Just hold me right now, I can't...I can't deal with this."

Jake did, and his breathing slowed.

"I'm sorry." Jake's hand moved slowly back and forth across his shoulder blades. "I wish I could make it better."

"God, don't go..."

It was already too late, and Edgar was holding his threadbare blanket in the hospital, and Harry was snoring.

~~~

"Johnny, how did I get here?"

"Hmm?" Johnny looked up from the comic he was drawing.

"How did I get here?" He had a coffee mug in his hand.

"I took you out." Johnny returned to his drawing. "I saw you, so I took you out."

"What were you doing there?"

"There was this study on sleep..." A pause for a few minutes. "But I saw you."

"It was real..."

"Yeah. I thought you looked...I thought you'd be better off with me. Since I..." He couldn't think of a good end to that sentence.

"How did you get me out?"

Johnny shrugged.

"Why?"

He shrugged again.

"Nny, what if...I'm not...what if things just get worse?"

"What do you mean?"

"I was there for a reason..."

Johnny turned and stared at him.

~~~

A long time ago, there was a young boy and his grandmother. One day, the young boy and his grandmother decided to go to the zoo nearby. It was a very nice zoo and was widely known for having large and expansive exhibits that no other zoo had. It had lots of interesting animals and things to do, and fun toys that he could touch but not have. His grandmother told him about all the animals, and special stories about them that he loved and never heard enough of.

The boy loved looking at the animals and even though he wanted a stuffed toy, he didn't say anything. He was a nice boy, and he knew that his grandmother had spent money to even get them into the zoo, and to ask for something else was impolite. He was a polite boy.

One day, the young boy and his grandmother went to the zoo, and they had a new exhibit. It was a large house made of glass, and outside it had big colorful signs that said "The Butterfly Experience."

The young boy and his grandmother went in.

~~~

Splitting apart, piece by piece, sawed over the rough edge too long and elastic screaming, squealing as it pulled apart. Stricken, broken strata, and and and

and

_Come on, Edgar, come on, we've been through worse than this, we've survived before and we'll survive now_

_Eventual collapse, collapse, eventual collapse_

_Eventual, not inevitable! God damn you, listen to me! Come on!_

The elastic wanted to turn on the rough edge that tormented it so and it wanted to tear it to pieces, but there was little a rubber band could do against its tormentors except snap back, and in this situation...

~~~

"You're still hallucinating, Edgar."

"Am I?"

"Yes."

"What am I going to do?"

"I changed your meds, so I'm not sure what else could be the problem..."

"Is this where I really am?"

"What do you mean?"

"...I don't know. Never mind."

"You're a strange guy, you know that? I've never had anyone react this way before."

"How long have I been...?"

"A week or so..."

~~~

_Scriabin, stop..._

_Stop what?_

~~~

"What was the other world like?"

"It was a dark place..." Harry kept eye contact with Edgar as he spoke. "Everything was rusty, bloody...worn down, destroyed. Like everything had been abandoned. Nothing lived there...it was dark everywhere, even outside, and it was raining constantly. That was probably why everything was all rusted...there were horrible monsters there too-"

"Monsters? What kind of monsters?"

"Lots of different kinds...it was hard at first, but I managed to get through them...well, some of them, before I came back to this world again, and I ended up here. I have to go back to the other world though, Cheryl is waiting for me-"

"What kind of monsters?"

"Oh...let's see...there were these strange bird creatures, and these dogs-"

"Dogs?"

"Yeah...vicious, really persistent...they were all mangled though, stretched out of shape...twisted by the other world."

"Maybe..." Edgar looked down at his blanket. "Maybe, maybe that's where they attacked me. Maybe that's where that thing came from. From the other world."

"Have you been there too?"

"I've been there."

"Oh, you're awake."

"I've been awake for a while."

"You've been there too, James?"

"Well...I think I have..."

"I've got to go back." Harry kept his fist tight. "I've got to go back and find her."

_Imagine if you were that brave._

~~~

Back in the room with the light and the pen and the clipboard, and the soft tap tap of nervous movement not from him.

"Edgar?"

His voice was weak, barely audible.

"What?"

She looked down at the clipboard, back up at him.

"Have you ever been abused?"

Stared at her, eyes wide and disbelieving, the instinctual and lightning-quick sense of wounded dignity, of the very idea of it.

Blinked and felt it, and then the first reaction got pushed away, pushed to one side with a soft "oh" from Scriabin of surprise, and he felt his eyes water a little.

"Yes."

She stared at him for a few seconds, scratched something on the paper.

"This might be hard for you, and I'm sorry. But...would you feel comfortable telling me what kind of abuse? Emotional, physical, sexual? You don't have to answer if you don't want to. There's no pressure. We just want to help."

Edgar stared and his eyes watered still, and he felt his throat closing so he had to speak fast.

"All of them."

"I see," she said softly, and she marked out something with slow precision on the sheet that Edgar couldn't see. "Did you ever report it to the authorities? To anyone?"

"No." He was choking, slowly choking.

_Like anyone could do anything about it. Nny doesn't exist, after all,_ Scriabin said with a touch of hostility, and for a moment the behavior that had been drilled into him, reinforced through so much punishment and fear throughout his double-life, those borders set that Scriabin said he hated and wanted to tear down for Edgar but had built himself, all of it came down and for a moment Edgar felt something again, he felt something that Scriabin had taken away. He felt hurt, that was familiar, but now he felt angry.

_Fuck you._ For once he wanted to fight back. For once he wanted to stop sleeping. _Fuck you, you were worse._

Scriabin took a deep breath, too prolonged to be a true gasp but it indicated the same kind of emotion.

_Edgar-_

_You were worse because you haven't stopped._ His chest tight and it hurt, and Edgar let his head rest on his arms on the table. _You haven't stopped, and you'll never stop._

~~~

"Edgar?"

He had no idea who'd be talking to him now. At any given moment he could be anywhere. He had become multiple, many places at many times. All places at all times, and he could never say where he was. He jumped, shifted without warning, became possibility. Became infinite, spread thin over a multitude of different places, different times and different thoughts and people under different circumstances, and there was little, if any, standard he had to decide which was more real, valid. What was the source reality he had once known, where he had started, and where he was now. Lost. He felt lost.

"What?"

"Edgar, how do you feel today?" Back in Group again. The faces around him familiar. Some of them were. Harry sat beside him, and he could recognize Michael and Richard across the room.

"How do I feel?"

_I feel like I'm being torn apart. How about that._

"Scriabin feels like he's being torn apart."

"Edgar-"

_Not only that, but that no one can even tell. Being torn apart by myself and nothing is happening, no one is noticing. My head is splitting sideways and everyone is just using it, getting used to it, no one wants to change it. I'm splitting, fading, falling, and my head hurts and I feel sick and the food here is horrible._

"Scriabin's very unhappy."

"How do YOU feel?"

"...the same."

"Then why mention it then?" Michael said with his arms crossed.

"Just let it go," Harry said, and Michael rolled his eyes but didn't say anything further.

"I don't know where I am anymore..." Edgar rested his head in his hands. "I don't know how I got here. I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm supposed to be getting better, but I'm not. Nothing's changing. Everything's just getting worse. Everything's blurring together. I can't tell what's real and what's fake anymore."

"Edgar." Johnny walked through the door of the meeting room. "I got some cookie dough. You want to make it or something?"

_Might as well have asked if you wanted to knit a red sweater._

~~~

Edgar reached for the salt and knocked it over.

_Depth perception, my dear._

_Shut up._

He picked it back up.

It felt so normal that it almost burned.

~~~

"Edgar, how do you feel today?"

"I feel...lost."

~~~

"If we collapse..." Scriabin dunked the plastic lobster he was playing with underneath the soapy water. Edgar raised an arm to protect his face, as he didn't want to get any in his eyes. That would sting. Scriabin continued splashing the toy about without much care, his hair plastered to his skin with small rainbow bubbles sliding down. "If we collapse, what will happen to our selfs?"

"Ourselves?"

"Our _selfs_ , you twit." Scriabin stared at the lobster. "If everything falls apart, for real, everything we know, all our memories...what happens to us?"

"What do you mean?" Edgar took the cup that was floating nearby and doused Scriabin with it. Scriabin sputtered, wiped his eyes, considered retaliating but realized Edgar was just trying to get the soap out of his hair.

"Us. If we lose everything else...will we lose each other too? If things get really bad...do we lose each other? Will we just become some gibbering mass, instead of who we are?"

Edgar filled the cup again, this time taking a bit more care, and Scriabin ducked his head to allow the water to run over it.

"If we collapse, completely...the end of the whole process, will _we_ still be here? Or...will you?"

Scriabin shifted his weight uncomfortably, and Edgar knew he was trying to decide what to say. He eventually looked up at Edgar, and he wore his glasses in the bathtub because...well, just because, it seemed.

"Of the two of us..." He didn't want to say this, normally wouldn't have, but what did they really have to lose at this point? "Of the two of us...I think I'm more at risk. Don't you think?"

"Risk at being lost..." Edgar pushed some of Scriabin's hair out of the way of his face. "Yeah...you are...but if it comes down to it...I think that if we're going down..."

Scriabin dunked the lobster under the water again.

"I think we're _both_ going down."

"How much of us will be left?"

"I dunno."

"And how long will it take to repair..." Scriabin splashed again and this time Edgar did get some water in his eyes. He rubbed at them furiously but the stinging didn't stop.

It was not a question of _if_ it could be repaired...

To Scriabin, it was how long it would take to do it.

And that faith...faith in himself, in his abilities...

What good would it do?

Scriabin looked up at him again, reflective lenses spotted with stray droplets of water. 

"It always comes down to us."

He handed the plastic lobster to Edgar. __

~~~ __

"What would you do, Edgar?"

Back in that house again, and he tried to jerk up but found he was lying down. Johnny was beside him, close enough so that he could feel the warmth off his body, but just far enough so that they weren't touching.

"What?"

"What would you do?"

Edgar tried to gather his thoughts, find a way to respond.

_For him._ Scriabin sighed.

Edgar lifted an arm slowly to move it over his head, and he saw again the wounds he had inflicted sometime ago that he could no longer remember. Letters and slashes to hide those letters, and healing...

He blinked with his one remaining eye, and he looked at Johnny, who stared at him, curious and waiting.

"What else _can_ I do?"

_What haven't you done..._

Johnny stared a few moments longer, and then he turned to rest his head on his arms, away from him.

~~~

"...to find myself. To know what I want. I've lost everything, I've lost...what I thought I was doing. I don't know where I am, I don't know who I was. I don't know who I am."

Right in the middle of him talking, and that added a whole new level to this that Edgar wasn't sure where to begin with.

_But you were talking before...it wasn't me, it was you...are we just jumping through periods of time? How can you be here but not be here? Daydreaming? No...god, no, this doesn't make any sense..._

"And..."

Patiently waiting, and someone coughed.

"I'm sorry, I forgot what I was talking about."

"That's okay, Edgar."

_How can I have...when I was talking? Did I leave? Did I just dream up what was happening...have I been going through the routines while I've been miles away? How can this...how does..._

Edgar opened his eyes and he was in the quiet room, sitting on the bed.

He buried his hands in his hair and whined harshly through his teeth.

_I'm sick of this, I'm sick of it, I'm sick I'm sick I'm sick..._

_You're wearing my coat..._

Opened his eyes, and he was.

~~~

"I think we'll be okay."

"What?"

"I think we'll be okay," Johnny repeated as he turned to look at him again. Edgar was propped up in bed reading a book, and Johnny was beside him, sprawled out completely.

"How so...?"

"I mean...I saw what was happening...I read your book. Once or twice...I read it, and I know what was happening. I know what he was doing to you...what he did to you. And now, I know that...things have gotten very bad." Johnny took a deep breath. "But I think we'll be okay. I think you'll be okay."

_That's an arrogant statement to make. I think we would know if we were okay or not, or if we were going to be at any point._

"I...so you did read it then..." Edgar wasn't reading what was in the book, and he was pretty sure it wasn't words to begin with. "I wasn't sure...everything gets very hazy at that point. It's hard to remember exactly what happened back then..."

"I know...but I think we'll be okay. I think we'll get past this. I think that...we can still get what we wanted."

_What YOU wanted._

"I think we can still achieve it, don't you?"

Edgar nodded, mostly because he wasn't sure how else to respond.

"You're the one who told me to keep trying..." Johnny rested his head on his hands. "You're the one who said that I could change, if I really tried. I think you can too, if you want. I think you can get past this."

_Wow, why didn't I think of that! Just believing that things will get better! My word, you're just so full of surprises, Johnny! To think, if only we had contacted your miraculous font of knowledge sooner, perhaps EDGAR WOULD STILL HAVE AN EYE!_

"I did that myself." Didn't intend to say that out loud. Johnny didn't turn to look at him, but he was sure that he must have heard that.

_Don't you blame him for that, that was my decision._

_I blame him for everything_ , Scriabin said with pure loathing.

~~~

"Why are people so...unpleasant?"

Holy shit.

He tried to move and just as he thought, it was...

It was quite painful.

This time, Edgar really did get sick.

~~~

"Edgar, how do you feel today?"

"I feel...lost."

"feel today?"

"ost. efee I"

"ay ar ged doyu how eef yad egg fee"

"leeleeleel ah"

feel feeeeeeeeel to to to tototodaKCZCKKKCKZKKXXXXZZZZZ

~~~

"Hmm?"

"Where...where are we now?"

"I don't even know if that's the right question anymore." Edgar managed to focus on Scriabin's face at least, although he still felt vaguely dizzy. His features were sharper, more pronounced, his eyes hidden but his jaw-line marked with small sharp protuberances, maybe something like spikes or horns. His ears longer, pointed, and he noticed that the hand resting on his lower back felt bony and thin, and claws poked through the fabric.

" _What_ are we?"

"Closer." Scriabin seemed to be studying Edgar just as Edgar studied him in return. He looked at Scriabin's hands to find them dark, ridged with spines and fingertips thick with sharp claws. Animalistic. "What are we, hmm."

"Well..." Edgar looked down at his feet. "We're dancing now, apparently."

"So we are." Scriabin swept Edgar along with him, an elegant turn and Edgar felt a strange weight accompanying him, not finishing in time. "I feel pleasantly lucid, don't you?"

"Considering what's been going on, yeah, I think so. I'm still...what's going on?"

"Well, maybe this is...maybe we're reconstructing reality. Maybe this is just a representation of what we really want."

"I don't think so."

"Why not?" A long step that Edgar followed, pressed against Scriabin's chest. He looked and caught the bone constructions lifting from Scriabin's back, large and yet insubstantial, the thin bone fingers of wings with webbing created only by the tangled threads of yarn looping in and between each other, thick knots and thin trailing lines to fill the empty space, an illusion.

"If what I really wanted was to dance with you, for some utterly bizarre reason, I don't think I'd wear a dress." Edgar looked down at the thick fabric around his legs. "I would wear the same thing as you. Not just because it's less emasculating, but...you understand. You know why."

"I do." Scriabin smirked at him. "But are you sure this isn't just what you've always wanted, deep down?"

"Har har." Edgar rolled his eyes as Scriabin dipped him near the ground, leaned over and supported him. "Wouldn't you know that already, in that case?"

"Touché." Scriabin lifted him back up, spun him close. "Besides, on my end, I'd prefer not to have my wings present. They're mine, you know. If this is what you want, then they wouldn't be here."

"And if this is what you want, then they wouldn't be here either, would they?" Edgar matched his smile for a second. "You'd look a great deal more handsome, I'd imagine. You have a tendency to do that."

Scriabin grimaced in distaste at some unknown figure. "Yes, I'm not much for the whole monster-ish look I have going on here. It's remarkably difficult to dance with my feet like this."

Edgar glanced down to check, and saw feet angled upwards and back like an animal's with barely any pads, just bone and claws scrabbling against the tile. Edgar stumbled a bit himself in his own footwear.

"You should try it in heels."

"So." Scriabin whirled around again, his claws tapping a strange rhythm along with the faint strains of music that Edgar could just hear. "This isn't us then, is it?"

"Well, for you, all I can guess is that maybe it could be the ugliest part of you. For me..." Edgar lifted a hand from Scriabin's shoulder for a second to look at his white gloves a bit more closely. "I have no idea what this is about. The gayest part of me? Shit, this is stupid."

"This is important though, Edgar." Scriabin pushed him away, hung onto his hand and Edgar spun away, and the way the skirt followed his motion late and the weight of it, completely foreign, almost made him stumble. "Whatever these delusions are, we're not creating them. Something else is doing this to us."

"Hmm." Edgar spun back, felt Scriabin's chest against his back and his arm around his waist. "You're right. We're not going crazy...something is happening. Something keeps shifting us around. Maybe trying to disorient us. What do you think?"

Scriabin spun him around, let him settle back into his previous position, one hand on his shoulder and the other in his grasp. "I think I like being able to talk like this again. I feel...I haven't felt this way in a while. Do you think it's because we haven't tried to fight yet?"

Edgar was following some pattern long-set, and he rested his head on Scriabin's shoulder. "You mean the delusion? I think you may be right. Other times we've doubted, tried to find the reality we came from. So far, we've done what this...whatever this is has wanted us to do. We're dancing, for...some reason."

"Something wants us to do something. There's something behind this, I know it." Scriabin settled his head beside Edgar's, and those sharp things on his jaw-line scratched against his skin. "The system is trying to force our collapse. I think that's what it's trying to do to us."

"This is a good sign then, isn't it? That we're able to talk like this?"

"It depends...we can't do what we want to. We're trapped in the pattern it sets, otherwise it jerks us around again."

"It'll start doing that again soon anyway, though. It'll know that we aren't collapsing, so to speak, if we just go through the motions. We're just postponing the inevitable."

"Not necessarily." Scriabin took a turn, and Edgar almost stumbled, his feet unused to the shoes they were confined in, the requirements for balance. "We'll figure something out."

"Heh...listen." Edgar closed his eyes, heard the faint strains of an invisible orchestra, and felt claws touch his cheek gently. "Is this one of your symphonies?"

"Ha." Edgar opened his eyes and saw Scriabin smile, wide and fanged. "This is entirely too melodic for my namesake. If it was one of mine, you'd know it."

"Must be hard to talk with those fangs in your mouth."

"Did you know you're wearing a tiara?"

Edgar raised an eyebrow. "Touché."

Another sweeping turn across the ballroom floor.

"There's no one here..."

"Did we have an attachment to this story? Do you think that's why it's dredged it up?"

"What story?"

"Beauty and the Beast." Edgar rolled his eyes again. "It isn't that hard to tell, is it?"

"Nothing comes up for me." Scriabin shrugged. "But memories right now...they're falling apart. Not a reliable source of information."

"Then why...? I'm sure that's what this is, I'm sure of it."

"Well, the moral was...what? Appearances can be deceiving?"

"I don't think this is about morals..."

"What else could it be about?"

"Nothing. And it may know by now, that with us..." Edgar nodded towards Scriabin. "With us, everything means something."

"Good point."

Edgar nearly rolled his ankle when his foot slipped, but Scriabin's hand around his waist kept him up.

"Isn't this...isn't this form of yours the form you use to protect me? Or when you protected me, I mean? I remember seeing it once or twice...but it was never for a long period of time."

"It _is_ intimidating, isn't it?" Scriabin's voice touched with quiet amusement, and it had been a while since Edgar had heard that. Lately he had vacillated through such extremes, from hatred to sadness to frustration and anger. Subtlety had been lost in the process, and to have it back, to hear it again...something about it was empowering. Comfortingly familiar, long old. "Changing just this much is difficult enough, but it does the job. I don't like changing too far."

"So, if this is the form you protect me in..." Edgar looked at Scriabin's shoulders, the tattered ends of his sleeves. The outfit Scriabin was wearing, directly from a fairy tale illustration of a prince, had been changed, damaged to accommodate Scriabin's not-exactly-human form. Edgar ran a gloved finger across Scriabin's shoulder. "Is this the part of me that needs to be protected?"

"Are we trying to find meaning again?" Before, the statement would have come with an accusation, that it was Edgar's fault and Edgar's failing that he was doing something that, the insinuation ran, was so pointless. Now, the quiet bemusement took the harsh edges, generalized the subject to the both of them, the mistake both of theirs and the gravity of it largely downplayed. It was a pleasant change, to be able to speak without fear of attack, and Edgar knew that throughout it all, he had been speaking the same way. A truce struck at some point, although he wasn't sure when. "I don't think there is any, to be honest."

"Staying with the confusion theory then? If this...whatever this is is trying to confuse us, then they're doing a good job." Pulled close to Scriabin and Edgar rested his chin on his shoulder, the warmth of his body comforting in a way that, in such a setting, was so strangely platonic. "The system just trying to disorient us...make us weak for the final attack."

"Edgar..." Scriabin rested his head against Edgar's gently, his motions smooth. "They've already attacked us...for all intents and purposes...they've won. We aren't fighting them now, we're trying to rebuild."

"Giving up?"

"No, just changing goals." A touch of old pride. "Maybe they haven't won, maybe you're right. But I don't think they're going to attack us again. What we have to focus on is healing the damage already inflicted. Finding our way back."

"Rock bottom. They used that phrase a lot in Group."

"Careful." Scriabin took a deep breath. "We're still not sure what triggers it. Best to keep it vague."

"But this whole scenario...why? I've never danced in my life. It's not something I was ever interested in. Why do we look like this?"

Scriabin paused, then he smiled, a sharp tooth catching over his lip. "My boy, didn't a movie come out...?"

"Which one? Not yours, I imagine."

"No, an animated one." Scriabin's grin grew wider. "For the children, your everyday fanciful ride, and it had a scene with a ballroom, and the beauty and the beast dancing..."

"God, do you think so?" Edgar said, aghast. "This is just some stupid recreation of my memories of a commercial for a movie I never even saw?"

Scriabin just smiled and raised his eyebrows.

"Christ." Edgar rested his forehead against Scriabin's shoulder. "This is just embarrassing."

"Come now, the dress wasn't embarrassing enough to begin with?" Scriabin adjusted his grip on Edgar's back. "You're handling that rather well, considering."

"You get pushed far enough, you stop reacting." Edgar sighed, and pulled away to look at Scriabin again. "And how seriously can you take something like this, anyway? This is like that dream where I was a church mouse. You can't question something like that, it's just so patently ridiculous. You just let it go."

Scriabin shrugged, and his wings shifted, creaked behind him. "Wasn't I in that dream? I think I was."

"You were a cat, if I recall." Scriabin grinned at the thought, and Edgar rolled his eyes again. "Big surprise."

"Ah, I'd make a good cat..." Scriabin said mostly to himself, and he looked up towards the ceiling.

"God...those dreams. Do you remember the dreams? The really bad ones?"

Scriabin nodded, let his eyes travel to the floor to watch their steps.

"Preparation for an attack...? Or maybe there would never be one, we'd just get worn down until we couldn't fight anymore..."

"So...what do you think will happen when we do collapse? I mean, when the system is done with us?" Scriabin kept his eyes down. "Will things just go back to normal?"

"Think about it...we just snap back, and everything's okay again..." Edgar shook his head slowly. "We wake up, and it's like...nothing ever went wrong. It was all a dream..."

"Here's a question for you." Met his eyes again. "How far back would that be? Before the hospital? Before the diary? Before the toy? Before Nny himself? Before she died?"

Edgar made a thoughtful noise, but he couldn't think of much else in response. Scriabin let the silence go, let the music softly fill the gaps. It sounded familiar, long ago and far away, and Edgar knew the song. He knew he'd heard it before, but he just couldn't place where, exactly.

Scriabin faltered for a second, claws slipping and his wings spread to help keep his balance. Edgar watched the bone and yarn sway, the loose strands near his face and away again.

"Why do you have those, anyway?"

"Long story." A grin, something childish and mischievous, and that kind of relative innocence had been lacking too much lately.

Short pause.

"I like...being able to talk like this again." Edgar looked up. "I haven't felt this way since...God knows how long."

"Edgar..." Scriabin's expression a little more serious. "You were being sarcastic with me before...more so than you would be normally. More confident...like me. You don't think that we're already...losing each other, do you?"

Edgar hadn't thought of that, and he found that his initial planned reaction, to laugh, would have said too much. "Losing each other...God, I thought we couldn't be more separate."

"I told you, that's what worried me about this whole thing. Possibly..." Another dip towards the floor, and Edgar closed his eyes. He could feel Scriabin breathing on his neck. "We're rational now, which is good, but...what does it mean?"

Lifted back up. "How do we know what to do? I don't think this will make any sense...it's not supposed to."

"At least that we can hang on to."

The claws moved, settled around his face until Edgar couldn't move for fear of hurting himself, and Scriabin kissed him. Chaste enough so that it would have fit in such an archaic scenario, but the fact he felt those fangs in one way or another meant that Scriabin was pushing it, as usual.

"I was supposed to do that." Scriabin gave him a wicked grin. "I suppose I should rip your bodice off now."

"Frankly, if I can still think through the whole ordeal..." Edgar closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "If doing it will keep us thinking...I'll rip it off myself."

~~~

Edgar looked up, opened his eyes. Wherever he was now, it was dark. He felt something warm and breathing across his lap, and he reached down to shake whatever it was.

"Scriabin, wake up." As soon as the words left him, he realized that it was, indeed, Scriabin lying across him. He wasn't sure if the reality was defined by his words or if he had just known, in one way or another.

"Hmm..." Scriabin sighed long, stretched, pushed himself up. "Where are we now?"

"You said before...if you were touching me, then there's only one place we could be." Edgar adjusted his glasses, felt both his eyes blinking and solid. "This is definitely in my mind, somewhere. Not reality."

"Depends." Scriabin's words elongated as words were when one was stretching, his back popped once. "Nnf, depends."

"How so?"

"Your definition...our definition of reality isn't that clear, and what is clear can be easily...imitated. If this is all some long fever dream, orchestrated by the system to keep us quiet and out of the way, then who's to say they wouldn't learn or know eventually that in your concept of reality, I can't touch you? That to mimic reality properly, I wouldn't be able to touch you?"

"That insinuates..." Edgar's eyes slowly adjusted, and he could see shapes across the walls. A basement, he was almost positive. "That insinuates that there was a reality, at one point, and that the dreams began at one point. Everything beyond that would be a dream."

"Question is when that period began." He could see the vague shape of Scriabin standing, short and compact.

"Looks like we're children again..." Edgar grabbed Scriabin's sweater, used it to pull himself up. "If we were just thrown into a...long fever dream, then whose control was the dream under?"

"Think the system was tweaking the dreams?"

"I don't know anymore..." Edgar shook his head. "Like you said...how far back? When did I start dreaming? Am I dreaming now? What was reality...how far back have I been hallucinating? When did it start?"

"I've found we're not particularly good at defining starting points." Scriabin reached out, found Edgar's hand in the darkness. "Not for when you started to feel attached to Johnny, when you began to think of me as a person, when you got attached to me, when things started going really wrong...we're not good at that."

"Where are we now, do you think?"

"If the system is collapsing us...or causing us to collapse, it'd make sense that our memories would end up jumbled together like this...like you said, with the shards. Just falling into one after the other. But you may remember...there are memories that we created, or one or the other of us created at some point...we may fall into those as well. Fantasies, nightmares."

"How real is this, then? If the system is affecting the dream, than the conduit is open for it to influence us directly...maybe through the guise of dreams. Those creatures..." Edgar shuddered. "Those creatures...they could come to us now, at any time, if we're dreaming. They could hide themselves, wait for their moment."

"Like I said...I don't think we're considered that much of a threat anymore." Scriabin tugged at his hand, and Edgar reluctantly stepped forward into the dark. "I think they know that...well, we won't resist as actively as we once did. Darn it, now that you've pointed it out, it's hard for me to admit that they won this time...or at least, that much."

"Darn it?" Edgar smiled.

"Shut up. It's hard to hear this voice swearing. Now...if we're in a basement, this must be the basement of our house. Granma's house. Think she's here?"

"I don't know." Edgar felt around, headed towards where the stairs would be if this was the basement after all. "It's possible."

"Hmm..." There, he felt the banister. He took a step and heard Scriabin following behind, still holding on tight to his hand. "We're talking so civilly...working to decipher a common problem...and in the other realities...the shifting places, it wasn't like this..."

"What do you think it means?"

"Could be that the dancing...that this is just a dream, between you and me." Scriabin tightened his grip for a few seconds. "That we're just dreaming now...somewhere."

"Not as far back as I would like," Edgar tried to say with some humor.

"True. That means though, that our dreams...our shared dreams together, that can't be changed. We can't...we're not as crazy, that way. If that's a good way to put it."

"Not exactly...those horrible nightmares. They weren't ours, I'm sure of it. This dream-reality CAN be manipulated, it's really just a question of why they haven't done so yet."

"Hmm, manipulation...my specialty." Edgar was sure that Scriabin smirked in the dark. "Let's see, if I was in their position...our previous nightmares set us against each other, in one way or another. You...remember how." He didn't want to even say it out loud. It had been a long time ago, but dreams like that...they were hard to forget. "This dream...whatever the system is, it may just be presenting us with the illusion of sanity, of control. Of hope. Ha, that'd be sadistic. Giving us false hope that we'll get through this. Well, I think we have more of an effect on our future than the system may suppose..." That unquestioning faith again, in that they would survive this alive. "This dream here can just as easily be manipulated as our dreams from before...they either aren't doing it, for one reason or another, or they are, just to convince us that we're free when we aren't."

Edgar ran a hand through his hair. "Complicated..."

"I think things got complicated when we started shifting realities." His tone was mild. "Question is, what's more likely? What would they rather do with us? Do they have the time to spend on one lock, to invest so much time and effort into driving us specifically crazy? Would a system so shoddy as to pick Johnny and not realize it until it was too late be that thorough?"

"I don't think so..."

"Neither do I. That leaves the always unsettling option that it really is just us, finally losing that last vestige of sanity. There are no multiple realities, just delusions and hallucinations. Not a pleasant thought."

"Maybe this isn't entirely...you said there was a pipeline open to me, didn't you? Well, those things...those monsters came in through that pipeline, and I don't know how affiliated they were with the lock system, but I know the...big..." He shuddered. "The big...blob thing was. The other three...maybe they were just tagging along for the ride."

"I see." Scriabin put a hand to his mouth. "So it's possible this isn't necessarily the system manipulating us, but just some opportunistic parasite-" Scriabin choked on his last word, reconsidered. "An opportunistic predator saw that this mind was weak, open, and...you know, who would really notice, this close to the end?"

"So the reality shifts aren't related to the collapse, you think?"

"Oh, I think they are...in some way. All we're doing is theorizing." Scriabin shrugged. "I'm not sure. It's not healthy that we're doing that, and if it continues, I don't think...like we said, we can't take much more of this. There's got to be some way to stop it, or at least understand what we're up against."

"All we've got are theories..." Edgar rubbed one hand over the other. "Without more proof...we don't really have a plan of action. Important things first...if whatever reality we were shifting through before was the waking world, and this now is the unconscious...that means we're easy targets for the monsters now."

"If that is reality, which one?" They reached the door at the top of the stairs. "Which one was reality, and which one was just some kind of insane illusion?"

"I'm not sure about that." Edgar reached out, turned the knob. The main kitchen, and that was it. And that was literally it. The rest of the house was entirely gone, as if it had been ripped away. The walls stood at waist-height in some places, ankle-high at others, ripped edges as though torn with teeth. Blasted apart. The kitchen table stood on the tile, as it always had, although a few dead leaves rested on its surface, and its joints were marked with rust. The floor tiles were dark and dusty, dead leaves skittering across occasionally.

"Now this is interesting." Scriabin took the step into the kitchen, and Edgar followed. "Look at that."

Beyond the walls of what had once been their childhood kitchen stood a verdant, thick forest. The sunlight came through the leaves sparsely, caused glowing spots that shifted with the wind. Some tendrils curled across the walls, the slow invasion of the living into the living room. 

"Hey, there's the kitchen sink." Edgar smiled. The fixture was rusted and overgrown with the same crawling ivy.

"Well." Scriabin put a hand on his hip. A small cabbage moth fluttered by through the streams of light from the canopy above. "Well."

"I'm not sure." Edgar kept a tight hold on his hand. "What does this mean?"

"Nothing."

"Heh..." Edgar followed the moth with his eyes. "When you can just say that to things...it's a lot easier."

"If this is a dream...where will we wake up? In the hospital? With Nny? At home? Which reality will win out?"

Edgar stared up at the trees above, branches mixing and interlocking, and the soft motion of everything that only becomes apparent when you sit and pay attention. He stared, watched some small creature leap from one branch to another.

"Do you think...this is it?" Edgar sat down on the dirty ground, amidst the dead leaves that still moved occasionally. Scriabin turned and stared at him for a few minutes. "Do you think this is the last time we'll be able to talk like this? Really dream before it all falls apart? What if you're right, what if this is the last time we're really _us_ before it all comes tumbling down?"

Edgar moved his arms out of the way, and just as he thought, Scriabin flopped into his lap with some deliberate strength.

"Oof!"

Scriabin paid no attention, and instead rested his head against Edgar's chest.

"The last time we'll be together? In...you know."

"The last time we'll be able to think and talk clearly? Who knows." Edgar shrugged. "Who knows how long this dream will last? I know we're dreaming now. There's no way we can't be."

"What if this is the last time..." The cabbage moth landed on Scriabin's jeans, let its wings slowly open and close. "What if this is it? What if this is really it? Our last chance..."

"Can you say good-bye?"

Scriabin stared at the moth.

"Can you?"

"I don't think so." Edgar shook his head, the specter of finality prompting honesty. "I just...I just can't believe it. That this is it, this is the end. I can't believe that, it's just...it just doesn't seem real to me. I can't...I can't imagine being without you. I can't imagine...not being. I can't say good-bye if I don't really believe that...you're leaving. I feel...you should feel something when you say good-bye, that makes it valid...I don't feel anything."

"You never feel anything." Scriabin kept his hands in his lap, and the butterfly stayed where it was, undisturbed. "That's okay. It's who you are, I guess...I never liked that about you, you know."

"Can you say good-bye? Good-bye to all the things you hate about me?" Edgar smiled tentatively. "Good-bye to..."

"Good-bye to myself. Good-bye to being, for me. This is a bit more serious for me than it is for you..." Scriabin sighed. "Maybe when it all goes down, and you find your way out again, and you're rebuilding, I won't be there. I'll be that sacrifice, lost in time. Who can say? I can't...I don't want to."

"You don't believe it'll happen either, do you?"

"No."

"That we'll really...that this is it. You don't believe it..."

"No."

"Me neither."

The two watched the moth open and close its wings.

"We're both rather fucked up, when you think about it."

Edgar tilted his head slightly. "I thought you weren't swearing in that voice."

Scriabin ignored him. "The thing is...the amazing thing is, we can actually get worse."

"That's what I've learned through all of this." The moth finally flew away, flickered in the beams of light pouring down on old faded tiles. Scriabin shifted his weight, pressed a bit closer and Edgar held onto him. "That's what I've learned over...everything. Things can always get worse."

"I thought we hit the bottom before..." Scriabin sighed, and Edgar closed his eyes. "I kept thinking that, every time something bad happened that things could never get any worse."

"Things can always get worse."

"I don't want to die." Scriabin turned and buried his face in Edgar's shirt. "I don't want to die."

"We all die eventually-"

"I don't want to."

Edgar took a deep breath, thought back. He heard Harry's voice, just a sound or a syllable, and felt his hand in his own. Imagine if...the capacity for change, he had to have faith in the capacity for change, otherwise...

Now. This was the last chance, their last time, maybe, and it would have to be now. He took a deep breath, gathered his resolve. 

"If I have a choice...if there's even the slightest chance...I'll save you."

The finality in his words, the determination was enough that Scriabin didn't ask for reaffirmation, for any proof.

The die was cast. For all of their faults, the parts that ground against each other and caused such friction, despite it all he could not give it up.

He could not let someone die.

Not when there was something he could do to prevent it.

"When it comes down to it...the last moments before the complete collapse of mind and body...when it comes down to it, I want you there with me."

"I want to be there..." Scriabin turned enough, slid his arms around Edgar, his sweater covering his hands. "I want to be there, because I know you can't get back without me."

The end of all things, and the moth fluttered by again.


	3. Recovery

"Edgar, we wanted to ask you if you wanted a different roommate."

"Muh...what?"

"A different roommate, Edgar."

He blinked. A room, a table, a light and a person, staring at him.

"Uh...why?"

"Well...there was a time, some time ago when you...kind of attacked Harry. He says it was a misunderstanding and I know you agreed, but I just wanted to check with you, to make sure that you want to stay with him."

"Harry..."

"It's all right if you want to change your roommate. It wouldn't be too difficult, and we know you're going through some difficult times. It may be safer for you both, considering..."

"Does he want to change?"

"No...no, he doesn't want to. I want to know how you feel though, Edgar."

Edgar stared down at his hands. Fingertips mutilated, his knuckles webbed-white with scars, and he could see the beginnings of the dark lines, short and long, shallow and deep across his arm.

"I like Harry. Can he stay?"

"You want to stay roommates with him?"

"Yes." Edgar reached up a hand to touch his forehead. A bandage. "Harry's..."

~~~

"Were you married once?"

"Huh?" Harry blinked, shook his head. Edgar watched from his bed in the corner, his blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Eyes wide and dry, and they told him he hadn't slept in days.

James sat on the edge of his bed, stared at Harry.

"Were you married? You had a daughter."

"Oh..." Harry laughed slightly, put a hand to his head. "I'm sorry...I've been feeling tired lately...yeah, I was married once. She died though."

"How?"

"She got sick..."

"Harry?" Edgar didn't know he had spoken until the two turned to him.

"Yeah?"

"Was I here the whole time?"

"God..." James made a disgusted noise and turned away. Harry watched James for a few seconds, then turned back to Edgar with a faint smile.

"Yeah, Edgar. The whole time."

"Are you sure? Is there anywhere else I could have been? Have I been sleeping?"

"No, you haven't slept for days..." Harry rubbed at his eyes. "You should get some though, it's going to start playing with your head."

"Did...did I hurt you once?"

Harry was quiet for a few seconds.

"Determination," he said. "You've got to be determined, Edgar. You can't let a little thing stop you. You can't give up."

Edgar shivered, hard. Harry got up, went over to sit beside him, and Edgar ended up leaning against him, still shaking.

~~~

 _"Edgar, look out_ -!"

Headlights through the fractured light, raindrops and screaming horns and Edgar gasped, turned the wheel on instinct and the car lurched to the left with the squeal of tires. The headlights darted away and the car shook, bounced, jerked around violently until he found the sense to push down on the brakes, and he nearly choked when his seat belt caught around his throat.

"Jesus, Edgar!" Johnny turned to stare at him from the passenger's seat. "Are you okay? Why didn't you stop?"

Edgar tried to focus, his glasses off just that little bit, and rain poured down outside. The windshield wipers went on and off, and he could see the images of trees somewhere ahead. His heart beat fast and hollow and he felt cold all over, prickly and exposed. The adrenaline rush fading, and he was breathing hard.

"What...?" He sounded as dazed as he felt.

"You just-, I thought you saw him, I thought maybe you were doing something but, but, fuck." Johnny pressed a hand to his chest. " _Fuck_ , Edgar."

"Where am I...?"

"What?"

Edgar reached up to his face, to find the hole if not the eyepatch. He found both.

"Is this real...? Am I dreaming?"

"What? Edgar, are you okay? Shit, is your head bleeding? Shit!"

"Consequences..." He stared down at the blinking light on the dashboard, reminding him that the oil needed to be checked and the car was almost out of gas. "If there's one reality, only one world has consequences..."

"Edgar...?"

_Don't do anything stupid._

_Nothing that you wouldn't do._

"But which one?"

He slammed his head against the steering wheel, and the car horn sounded long and loud.

~~~

The pediatric group was heading out to the pool as the adult group headed back in. Only a few, maybe numbering seven at the most. Lingering in the back, his bear still clutched tightly, was Todd.

A bit more under control now, able to recognize that if he repeated his performance earlier, he wouldn't get to talk to him at all.

"Todd, what are you doing here?"

"Mr. Edgar...they said I was crazy." Todd looked around. "I'm not though."

_Question is...are you, my boy?_

"They can't keep you here very long if you're not." And for once, Edgar was glad he was wearing an eyepatch. As it was he was sure his appearance was rather offsetting, and Todd looked ill-at-ease around him.

"I don't know...they said they wanted to do mind-melty tests on me." Todd gestured in a vague way.

"Well..."

"Why are you here, Mr. Edgar? You're not crazy, are you?"

He woke up in his room again with his blanket wrapped around his legs, and Harry asking him to stop from across the room.

~~~

Staring over a cliffside, and his stomach lurched hard at the sensation and vertigo. He would have wheeled his arms to catch his balance, but he found himself sitting and that would have been a little awkward.

This was one of the worst things he had ever experienced, to be jumped from one place and time to another with no warning. There wasn't even any blank time between, just sudden abrupt changes. Every logical part of Edgar screamed every time it happened, demanded answers that he couldn't give. This incongruence, the inability to match world with world and time with time, made him feel sick and lost. Completely helpless, and constantly wrong. What world would he focus on? Which world was real? How much of this was real? He had no way to tell. Each reality he apparently jumped into seemed just as plausible as the other, just as real. Each shift was abrupt, sudden but when it stopped, the world seemed completely normal, completely as expected. All details and minor things completely taken care of. Every place he went, every time he existed, all seemed real, all seemed just as real as the others, and it just didn't make sense. The inherent danger in these unwarned and unplanned losses of time kept him constantly on edge, but he had no way to prevent them. He didn't know what caused them to occur. The near-miss with Johnny on the freeway was example enough that there was danger in these multiple shifts, and the fact he felt there was nothing he could do made him feel worse. At any time, anywhere, he could be pulled without warning from what he knew was real and thrown into some other scenario, and just when he got used to it, he could be uprooted once again.

The stress was horrific.

Edgar wanted to say that this was worse than death. The funny thing was, he had actually died once, or at least, he was fairly sure he did. He had the appropriate knowledge to make a well-informed comparison.

It was hot and muggy outside, and there was a cliff. Looked around a bit more, found he was sitting on a car hood and Johnny was beside him.

"No, I mean..." Johnny sat up, his expression intense and focused. "If you think about all the things that happened to you in your life, or, what didn't happen to you, whatever you like, what did it all produce?" Johnny gestured at Edgar widely. "Think about it! If we are the products of our environment, which I would like to think has some element of truth, then surely your environment of... _nothing_ would have prepared you for me. For _some_ thing, as it were."

Edgar knew the pressure was on him to respond, and had he the right knowledge, he would have. But he was a foreigner in his own body, in a world that acted as if it knew him. He was a visitor in a world that knew him as a life-resident. 

Worst thing was, he wasn't sure that he really was a visitor. It was entirely too possible that he had been here, the whole time, just wrapped up in dreams, and this was real. Anything could be real now, and such an important part of Edgar's life had been being able to differentiate between real and unreal.

"I...I'm sorry..." Edgar stared out over the city, Johnny's words already lost in the general nausea and confusion he felt. "I'm...how long have we been here?"

Johnny narrowed his eyes, annoyed for sure this time. "What? Were you paying attention?"

"Why..." Only one world had consequences. Maybe it was this one. He buried a hand in his hair. "Why here...? Why these places? Why these worlds...? Why am I here...what am I supposed to do?"

"What?" Johnny increasingly annoyed. "What are you talking about? You weren't...I thought we were talking about something..."

"If I die here..."

_I want a nap, but I don't know what would happen._

~~~

Back in the restraints and God this hurt, this hurt so much. It hurt in a way that he never forgot and came back in reminders at night when he tried to sleep. The myriad random aches and pains that coincided too close, brought back memories he didn't want. 

Back in the restraints and Johnny walked out from one of the other rooms, his hand over his left eye. He moved it and Edgar saw that there was a small piece of glass embedded in his skin just beneath his eye. He picked it out with unnatural, disturbing nonchalance, threw it on the floor, and looked at Edgar. 

"Now, where were we?" 

~~~

It was cold. The sky was a solid gray and the wind was biting, and Edgar stood in fairly warm clothes staring. For a few seconds he couldn't quite make out what he was looking at, but eventually it settled into unquestionable reality, a shift and a change and then everything felt as if this was the only world he knew and his mind screamed and screamed.

A snowflake landed in his eye and he squinted instinctively, stared at Johnny who was putting the final touches on a snowman that looked vaguely familiar. A hat with glasses and a frowning expression...

_Kind of looks like you,_ Scriabin said faintly. Edgar held his arms close to his body against the wind and watched Johnny's scarf flutter.

"What are we doing?"

"Building a snowman," Johnny said as if this was the most obvious thing in the world, which, as Edgar thought back on his question, seemed the right kind of tone.

Still solid. The sky still gray, the ground white. Johnny stared at his snowman with grave intensity.

"It needs something though..."

Then Johnny's knife was in his hand in movements too fast to see, that had always been too fast to see and he plunged it into the snowman's chest. 

~~~

"So..."

Edgar blinked, found himself sitting on his couch. Jake sat beside him, a magazine open in his lap that he was obviously not reading.

_I'm...trying to focus._ Scriabin hissed through his teeth. _I keep...I keep thinking of things, then everything changes and it all breaks apart again...I can't keep anything going, not for long, but I thought I had something..._

"Huh?"

Jake looked at him steadily, all traces of humor gone. "So you're telling me you've got two people in you? In your brain, I mean?"

Edgar blanched, and he felt Scriabin recoil in much the same way.

"I..."

"I just want to make sure." Jake held up his hands, closed his eyes. His tongue piercing clicked against his teeth. "I'm not going to leave you or anything, I just want to know more about it. I don't want to do anything wrong."

"You're..." Edgar kept blinking, and Scriabin's emotions easily overpowered his own. "You're not leaving?"

Jake stared at him for a few seconds, then shook his head with a faint smile. "No, man, I wouldn't do that. We've got something, I think." He put a hand on his shoulder. "I think we've got something real, Edgar. I don't want to lose that, and you don't want to either, right? I mean, if it's a problem or something, we can work through it. I'm willing to do it. I liked being with you since I first met you, and I still do. I don't want to lose that. I just want to know what's really going on. You know, the whole picture. I want to know what to...expect, I guess. But I won't leave, no. You don't have to be afraid of that."

"I..."

_Jake..._

"I...I don't know...I've never...I never thought that...I mean, it means I'm...I could...I could hurt you, couldn't I? I mean, aren't you afraid? I don't want to hurt you."

Jake tilted his head. "If that other part of you really wanted to hurt me, wouldn't they have done it already?" Jake smiled again, this time more broadly. "Besides, I think he likes me too, doesn't he? I'm almost positive we've talked once or twice, though I didn't know exactly who he was at the time."

Scriabin's response was high and soft, a faint but definite "mmhmm," much like a child. In direct response to Jake, even though there was no way he could hear.

"I'm just..." Edgar looked down. "I'm not...I don't expect...I don't expect people to do that...for us. Deal with...deal with both of us. I've never told anyone...they'd think we're crazy. I never thought...even if I did tell someone, I always thought that'd be it. That'd be the excuse they needed to leave...I've had people leave me for less. Something like this...I didn't think anyone would want to make that kind of commitment..."

Jake moved his hand from Edgar's shoulder to his thigh. He was still smiling in a kind way. "Would you believe me if I said I've dealt with worse?"

"Worse?"

"Long stories. Lots of long stories. But frankly Edgar...you're nice, you're smart, you're sincere, and you care. A lot. It's hard enough to find one of those things in people nowadays, but all of them? And we've been together for what...?"

Edgar didn't know, and that thought made him shake.

"Months now," Jake supplied, and Edgar felt that tension release just a little. "And in all that time, that other person...he's never hurt me, or tried to hurt me, or done anything to hurt our relationship. Or to hurt you, as far as I've seen. As far as I can tell, he doesn't want to hurt me or you. I'm not afraid of him. I just want to know more about him. It's something real I have to deal with, so I want to know."

"Scriabin..." Edgar breathed his name softly. "Scriabin's...he's always liked you. He's the one who...told me to keep talking to you. He's the reason...you're here."

"I guess it's him that I should thank then, huh?" Jake still smiled, and Scriabin's emotions were completely overpowering. Running the gamut from joy to regret to fear, there was the sense of relief over it all, of intense relief.

_So it was all fake...all a dream..._

So many realities, all just as real as the other. Their desire for one reality over another mattered little, if at all. This was the reality that Scriabin, no doubt, longed for the most, and in the end, it would make no difference.

Somewhere, Edgar knew that this would vanish, like the others. There was no world he could form a solid attachment to, no world that would last long enough for him to trust. His trust in everything he saw and experienced with all senses was being worn down, battered away by the constant shifting lies around him.

Scriabin pushed him out of the way, took control abruptly and without any warning. The transition was quick and disorienting, and by the time Edgar was able to sort out his own perceptions from Scriabin's -- to find himself, as it was defined so nebulously in the mental world -- Scriabin was kissing Jake with a ferocity that Edgar knew he would never have.

Take the moment while you have it.

Edgar couldn't fault him for it. His thoughts completely distracted, he merely sat and let Scriabin's emotions and sensations come through to him, muffled and blunted.

It may not last, but he could enjoy it while he had it.

If only. If this was real...then how much of Edgar's memories were lies? How much of what happened was a lie? When did the lies begin and when did it all end? For this to be real, so much had to be different...but how could he say what was real and what wasn't now? Everything about this seemed completely plausible, solid and touchable as Scriabin was demonstrating, and the only reason that there was doubt to be cast on its reality was that Edgar remembered things differently.

And as Scriabin said, memories weren't so reliable anymore.

Did it really happen as he remembered it? Did that really happen, or had those memories just been implanted, altered, changed? How much of his mind was really permanent, how many of his memories were real? How much of reality was defined by what he knew happened before, and what he knew now?

How much of this was just manipulation, just two puppets dancing at the end of some sadistic strings? Were the monsters so intelligent, so driven to torture him this way? Did they feed off of his confusion, of his emotions? Was the system involved at all?

Or in the end...was he really just going insane, and the whole lock system itself, all of it was just the desperate ramblings of a madman trying to shift responsibility that one last time?

For all his questions there were no answers. Just the reality he was in now that felt as real as the one he had just left and, he was sure, as the one he would soon fall into. Altered memories, actual reality, who could say.

If only though. If only. Edgar dug through Scriabin's emotions and found that, despite his best efforts, his thoughts ran along the same lines. _If only_ this was real. Trust broken too many times to believe that it was, that this could really be their final reality.

Fantasy, desire. Scriabin shuddered, moaned when he felt hands beneath his shirt, and Edgar closed his eyes.

Had it always been this way? Months, Jake said...

"Scriabin..." Words breathed when his mouth was free for those few seconds. "My name is Scriabin..."

"Well, Scriabin, I-"

It was like slamming into a wall, hard and bone-breaking, and Scriabin fell over.

"Edgar, are you okay?" Claws underneath his arms to pick him back up. "You dropped your ice cream."

A few seconds to realize.

_Fuck..._ Agonized and hurting. _F-fuck..._

Knowing didn't take away the pain. The fact that it shifted to a world with Johnny spoke of perhaps some crueler power at work. Edgar couldn't tell. He reached out, tried to soothe and keep his thoughts in check.

_It's okay..._

_No it isn't._ Wounded. _No it isn't, Edgar...shit. God...everything and...god, I can't do this, I can't go through this anymore..._

_We're going to get through this. We're going to survive. We're going to_

~~~

Edgar stumbled, crashed into a nearby shelf. He tried to steady himself, his eyes unfocused and he reached out to keep the shelf's contents from spilling on the floor. Cold and smooth under his hands.

"Where am I now...?"

_God, I don't care._

Edgar blinked, looked around. Endless rows upon rows of shelves, unmarked and almost unremarkable.

Across each shelf, in neatly lined rows, were snow globes.

Edgar looked at the shelf he had nearly collided with, and saw one underneath his hand. He picked it up, straightened it. The white flakes flew around in the water, blocked its contents, and when it settled

~~~

 _I don't care anymore._ Scriabin hurt and angry, frustrated and blaming Edgar, as he usually did. _I don't even care anymore I just want it to stop. I'm tired, I'm so tired of this. I can't deal with this, this constant...it's not...I refuse. I refuse._

_I'm not giving up..._ Edgar opened his eyes. His face felt itchy and dirty, his neck and ankle heavy. He tried to move his arms and found them pinned to his sides.

_A straitjacket...where am I now?_

_I don't care._ Just like a sulking child. _I don't even care._

It was dark, and he shook his head and found his hair long and caught on his beard. The smell of blood everywhere, and the feeling of being deep underground.

_Where...?_

The sound of a door opening, light pooling around his feet.

There's only one place this could be...

"...Nny?"

"I'm here." So he was right. Johnny's voice wavered, shook for a few seconds. "I brought some food."

Snapped into roles, preplayed and such but this wasn't his dreams. Staying to roles prescribed didn't promise consistency, that he had found. Did what was required of him and nothing made a difference.

Nothing he did made a difference.

"Where am I...? How long have I been here...?"

The light moved away from him, movements shaky and fast.

"You've..."

He tried to move, scratch his face but the jacket would not let him go.

"Why am I here...? Where am I...what is this?"

_I feel sick...oh god, I feel sick. Edgar, Edgar, I'm-_

_Calm down...it's not real._

It wasn't real.

Not this time.

~~~

Blink of an eye, and he was younger and smaller, awkward and tall and a teenager. No beard, no goatee even. He barely had time to find his balance before whoever had his hand tugged him forward again.

He was wearing long sleeves, and Edgar focused on who was talking to him and recognized his voice, younger and just that much more stable.

"Nny?"

Johnny stared at him with some curiosity.

"Uh...yeah."

"Where..." There was no answer to that question now, he knew it. "How old am I?"

Johnny gave him a weird look.

And Scriabin was singing again in his mind, but he didn't have time to identify what song it was.

~~~

Shifted his bag on his shoulder.

_God, it feels like I'm carrying bricks in here-_

~~~

I think I could love you. 

~~~

Gradually opened his eyes on his couch, as if he was waking up. He blinked, looked around. No one else. Alone this time.

Except for the action figure sprawled across his chest in an entirely too human position.

"Scriabin...?"

Sure enough, the toy moved, lifted a head sleepily.

"Uh...mm, what?"

_Scriabin?_

Static.

_Scriabin, answer me! Answer me, oh God you can't leave me now!_

Static.

"What's...what's going on?" The toy pushed itself up, sat up completely, and Edgar heard in its voice the terror he felt. "Oh my god, you're...I can't...how did I get here? What am I doing here? Why am I in here? This isn't right, this isn't how it should be-"

Edgar watched the toy pull itself up, hands in its hair in a gesture all too human. He found his words coming fast and thin. "I can't reach you, you're not...you're not in my mind anymore. This better not be some kind of sick game-"

"I can't...I can't, I can't, I don't know how, I don't know how to get back, I'm trying and I can't-" The toy hid its face with plastic hands. "I can't oh god, oh god, how could it be so easy, how could it be _so easy-_ "

"No, _no_. I refuse." Edgar thought of Harry, and he reached out and picked Scriabin up with both hands. "I refuse. This isn't real, no more real than the others. It's trying to trick us, it's trying to fool us. You're still a part of me."

Sitting on his bed, fighting with Johnny to get back the Scriabin toy, which wriggled and squirmed in his grip, and Johnny warded him off.

"He's just, he's a part of me, he is. He's still a part of me, he won't hurt me. He's trying to help me-"

Words preplanned.

"Edgar-"

~~~

An actual medical hospital this time, and he felt the IV in his arm and he felt weaker than he ever had in his life. It took effort just to open his eyes, and he found Johnny beside his bed, knees drawn up to his chest.

"Hi." Awkward, hesitant. "How...how do you feel?"

"Where am I...?"

_I'm...oh my god. Oh my god..._

_What?_

_Edgar you're...you're dying._

_What?_

_You're dying, I can feel it...I feel it, right...it's dark and deep, and it's spreading, and you're...you're dying, you're going to die...oh fuck I can...I can feel it, right there..._

Johnny just stared at him. Edgar looked, saw a box of books in one corner, a bouquet of flowers on the bed-stand, and his own heart beating on a nearby monitor.

_I'm..dying..._

_This can't be real...this can't be real, please let this be a dream...let this be something different..._

_I'm...dying..._

Dark anger, a bright light on the horizon not too far away, and arms wrapped tightly around his chest, pulling him back.

"Give it up, Edgar! You always give up, why can't you give up now! Your own fucking God damn you, you are NOT dying on me!"

Confused and not struggling, and it took Scriabin a few seconds to realize where he was, what was going on.

"I'm...I don't want to..."

"God, what...where...what's going on..." Scriabin kept tight hold of Edgar, who did not move as the light on the horizon faded away. "What was that...? Where's my...holy shit, what is my coat doing?"

"God..." Edgar took a deep breath. "We...we have to..."

"Jumping realities...jumping realities, this can't be real. We're the only things that are real anymore, Edgar. We can't trust anything else. We can't trust anyone except each other."

"Am I dead?"

~~~

The pillow pressed hard across his face, painful and unpleasant and a sharp pain in his nose.

As anyone would, as everyone would, he struggled.

~~~

Johnny asleep on his lap, and the sun through the window-

~~~

Johnny pushing him hard into a wall, then kissing him with just as much force-

~~~

Scriabin on his bed, gently pulling him close and Edgar gave no resistance-

~~~

Darkness, a red light cast over everything, and he was curled up on his side on a thin and uncomfortable bed, and he could hear Johnny talking somewhere across the room. The air smelt foul, his skin felt dirty and itchy, and he felt like someone was watching him.

"Look, I know why I'M here. I killed off a bunch of people, never believed in God, and was a waste lock. But YOU, you have seemingly no reason to be here. If you don't mind the rather abrupt introspection, why the HELL are you here?"

Hell-

Edgar choked, would have vomited but he wasn't there to be doing it.

~~~

"I'm your god now, Edgar." Scriabin holding his wrists down, his voice smooth and controlled and already relishing the victory that he knew that Edgar would give him. Panicked, frightened, sick, Edgar tried to move away, tried to break the hold on him but Scriabin did nothing but smirk at him, wait for his momentary, useless resistance to stop.

"Don't..." Edgar pulled at his arms as hard as he could, ended up aggravating a muscle in his shoulder that did not appreciate being twisted that particular way, and he clenched his teeth. "Ngh!" Scriabin's body shifted above him, and he knew what this was, and what would happen, and how it would end and what it meant and God, he wasn't sure if he wanted this, after everything that had happened he still wasn't sure if he even wanted this, if he was being forced into it and Scriabin wasn't forcing him this time, not like before and that way it was different, but his mind kept telling him it wasn't, and Scriabin just watched him, smiling, knowing.

"Don't say that."

He kept ending up here, he kept ending up beneath someone, beneath people depending on who crossed his mind and what did it all mean, it still had to mean something, all of this had to mean something and what world was this, or was there just a world where this was all there was, this was all there was to the two of them, just people taking pleasure in the joining of bodies without the messy emotional strings...

He knew that wasn't true, and he felt another surge of shame and nausea when he realized that to some extent that was what he wanted, between Scriabin or between Johnny it didn't even matter, he just didn't want to think any more God he wanted this to stop

Just everything _stop_

~~~

He was sitting in a chair, and he was bored out of his mind. That was the first thing that registered. The second was that Johnny was next to him and talking.

"Oh...I dunno. I just do." He gestured towards him. "You must know what I mean. I mean...you know...maybe I wanna go see a movie. And I can't. 'Cause I'm dead."

_We're dead?_

_Are we dead? Again? Can we even die?_

_Can we die...can we die, hmm..._

Johnny slouched as he lay his head across his arms on the chair back, looked somewhere off to the right. "Or...or maybe I wanna go out to a dance club, or go and get some coffee, or go and get my Sharpie out of that guy's nose...you know." He jumped out his chair faster with speed that Edgar would never get used to and began to pace around, gesturing wildly with his arms, his face contorting with rage. "You know!? But I can't do anything like that 'cause I'm DEAD!"

_How much of our current damage can be reversed? Fixed? You got your nose fixed, didn't you..._

_What are you getting at?_

_I don't know just yet, I'm just thinking..._

"I just...I just miss being alive."

_Yeah, so do I._

~~~

Trapped on the floor, pinned with Johnny's knee pressing hard in his stomach which did not help his nausea in the least, a hand wrapped around his throat and a knife near his face.

_Wow, this shouldn't be familiar. That's sad._

Johnny snarling, fierce and angry and his forehead was bleeding slightly.

"Don't I get to be happy? Shouldn't I be able to do something I want, something that involves only me without you doing something to try to stop me? Always with your fucking righteousness. I hurt Edgar and it springs from everything I've done, from everything that's happened to me throughout my whole life. If I could just make it all go away I wouldn't see the world through a shit-filter. I could be happy. And you won't fucking let me be happy! You won't kill me. I can't kill me. You won't even let me make myself go away and replace myself with someone better. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to fucking kill you."

_How many times has this happened now? Really happened?_

_I...I can't remember._

~~~

He woke up on someone's couch.

He stared, completely confused, past the point of moving. Any motion now seemed liable to prompt him to start vomiting, and he couldn't trust a reality to move him every time he was about to do something unpleasant.

_Only one of these is real but we're heading into new ones now, new worlds and none of these are familiar, what if we missed the real one, what if we're...which one have we been to the most? Which world have we been in the most?_

Edgar stared at the fluorescent light-bulbs above him.

_That would...that would be the mental hospital._

A pause.

_Well, shit._

Someone walked into the room. He turned over.

"Edgar, right?" Devi said.

~~~

Another world and cold lips pressed against his own. Skin against skin, chilled from the outside. He opened his eyes and saw it was Johnny.

_Oh, big surprise,_ Scriabin said with more resentment than Edgar really felt was necessary.

_What did you expect?_

_I don't know._ Scriabin made a huffy sound. _God, I wish we could control this, what's happening. At least you're not panicking anymore._

_Pushed far enough, you stop reacting._

_Yeah, tell that to your dick, by the way._

_Scriabin!_

_Ooh, I'm so scared._ Deliberately trying to bait him. _Oh, I better stop. Fuck. Fuck you._

_Why are you acting like this? Christ, I haven't even done anything to you._

_Fuck you._

_Fine,_ Edgar thought with a deliberately childish kind of annoyance. _Fine, be that way._

With that, he decided to participate a bit more fully in what was going on, and he caught from the corner of his eye that it was snowing outside.

Johnny pulled away, nervous, and then collapsed like a rag doll on top of him.

Scriabin paused, in thought maybe, then said with a nasty tone, _Merry Christmas, Edgar._

That would explain the snow.

~~~

He had a package in his lap that was wet and soaking through his jeans.

"Open it. I think you'll like it."

He wasn't sure if he wanted to. 

~~~

Johnny in his lap, in a strange position, staring into the distance.

"You...make me want to die..."

_Well, that's different at least._

"I'm..."

~~~

The first thing that he was aware of was that he was breathing hard, fast and his chest burned. It burned like he had gone swimming too long, burned with exertion and more so extended and prolonged exertion over a period of time he could not guess. It hurt to breathe, it hurt so much that he almost didn't want to breathe at all. Deep gulping breaths but it didn't satisfy, didn't stop the aching need for more.

He was running. How long he had been running he didn't know, but he knew at least it was far longer than he would have liked, or even perhaps should have run. Vague awareness came once he could stop focusing on the aching of his body, the motion of his lungs. 

His hand pulled in front of him, his arm tight and there, Scriabin. He could hear him breathing just as hard, wheezing and gasping as he pulled Edgar along. That's why he was running...Scriabin kept him moving. If he let go, Edgar would have fallen to his knees in seconds, but Scriabin kept him moving, Scriabin was responsible for this...

Why were they running?

He looked past Scriabin for those few seconds and saw looming brick walls on either side of him, narrower than they should be. No ceiling, and then a turn up ahead.

A maze...?

Scriabin barked something at him angrily but Edgar didn't understand, and they turned a corner as a kind of rumbling came through the stones, vibrated through his body until it broke like thunder, the massive roar of some kind of creature, some kind of monster, and if Scriabin hadn't been pulling him, he would have let go. He would have fallen to breathe, taken the time to breathe even though it would cost him the ability. Trading a few seconds for eternity, and

and Scriabin had never approved of that.

~~~

Stared at a birthday cake, and the wax ran over the icing.

~~~

He was curled up on his side again, this time naked and underneath only a thin blanket, in the basement of what he only could guess was Johnny's house.

_So why am I naked? Where am I now?_

_Oh boy, that question will sure get answered._

_You're real helpful all of a sudden._

_This is getting worse, getting worse. It hurts more each time..._ He curled up tighter. _It's not hurting less its hurting more..._

_You know, there are some things you don't get used to._

Heard footsteps, the door opening. It had to be Johnny, it had to be.

The blanket torn from his grip, and it was very cold.

~~~

He had his hand on the doorknob, and he fell over for real this time. It took him a few seconds for his thoughts and vision to clear enough, for him to see what was going on. Dark, Johnny's house again. His balance took a while in coming.

_Not a good sign...this is taking its toll..._

He pulled himself back up, hesitantly, and he opened the door.

Johnny's body was slumped on the floor, a gun held in one hand. Blood thickly spattered across the wall, bits of flesh, and the back of Johnny's head entirely gone.

That was enough, and he vomited for longer than he thought was possible.

_You always knew he would._

_Shut up..._

_You always knew..._

~~~

"Edgar, we wanted to ask you if you wanted a different roommate."

"Muh...what?"

"A different roommate, Edgar."

He blinked. A room, a table, a light and a person, staring at him.

"Uh...why?"

_Nnngh..._

"Well...there was a time, some time ago when you-"

"I-I remember now...no, I want Harry. I want to keep Harry."

She stared at him for a few seconds, emotions flickering fast.

"Edgar...Harry's dead."

~~~

_Are we repeating things? God, god..._

_Maybe we always have been._

_God damn, just shut up._

~~~

It was late at night, too late at night, and he stood in a convenience store. Tilted his head again, nearly fell over. He felt empty and drained and dull, the confusion pounding into him again and again and again. He looked down at what he was holding. Crackers and toilet paper.

Someone in front of him was yelling.

~~~

"Control me..."

~~~

He stared in the mirror, and his hair was long and he had an earring.

~~~

"I love you."

Johnny turned to stare at him.

"What did you say?"

_Oh shit, you didn't. Tell me you didn't. Tell me you didn't just do that._

_I-I-I don't know what happened, I was, I wasn't here, I don't know why I would-_

_God-_ A pause, then a growl, a snarl and an incoherent yell, hoarse and furious and broken. _GOD DAMN YOU! GOD DAMN YOU EDGAR, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT-!_

And despite how clear his words were, Edgar knew they ran deeper than they appeared, and he watched as Johnny tore the couch cushions apart under clenching hands. 

~~~

_I felt sick, but I didn't mean like this._

He couldn't breathe through his nose, and his head ached. He let his head fall against his desk, and he felt something small and plastic touch his forehead.

"H-hi." The toy was talking again, its voice slurred. "T-this is a fiiiiine kettle of fish."

"What the hell, Scri." Edgar's voice was thick and clumsy. Scriabin punched him as hard as an animate action figure could.

"Shut up! Shut your...your ugly face. Ugh, God..." He wavered, fell down. "I think I'm, I'm just, juuust a little bit...maybe, just a little bit...think I'm drunk."

Edgar groaned.

~~~

He didn't even like cereal that much.

~~~

He had his hand in a blender. He pulled it back with a short gasp, stumbled backwards hit a chair in his kitchen and fell over completely.

Something smelled good though.

~~~

"I'd like to invite you all to the wedding-"

~~~

_Oh god make it stop, make it stop, make it stop_

_I wasn't there for a few seconds Edgar I wasn't there_

~~~

Too late at night, and he could hear a preacher going on and on about something, but they called out. They called out and he responded.

"Amen..."

Someone pushed him off the couch.

~~~

It was entirely too hot for this. He sat by the edge of the pool, and Harry had his hand on his knee. 

"We'll be okay, all right? I promise you."

"What?" Edgar shook his head, remembered what was happening, what was going on. "What?"

"Edgar, we'll be okay in the end. Things can always be fixed. I know they can be."

"I'm...back here again...? Am I going backwards...?"

"There's a point when you can't do that anymore." Harry stared at him. "Maybe you have to reach it, maybe you don't. You've got to turn around though, sometime."

~~~

A confessional.

"Forgive me, Father..." Automatic before he stopped himself. "Wh...how long..." If he had just started, he couldn't have been here long.

"Why am I here?"

"I think you know."

~~~

_You'd have to buy me dinner first._

_...for what?_

_...I...I'm not sure._

~~~

The knife plunged right into his chest, scraped against his ribs with a horrible sound and sensation through his body, and pain that resonated throughout his entire being, blocked out every thought and question.

He screamed, because what else would someone do in that situation? The knife left a hole that swiftly -- and with a sensation that would have made him sick if he had the time to think about it -- filled with blood, poured out over his hands that were already there to try and protect himself, then the knife stabbed into him again, higher and it punctured a lung, and he struggled to breath but that was beyond his abilities now and the blood kept flowing and he felt it leaving him and the pain was incredible, unbelievable, indescribable.

Scriabin joined in chorus and agony, and the third blow landed and death was taking entirely too long.

~~~

The car was too hot, and there were fireflies outside. Johnny would have said something if Edgar hadn't immediately curled up into himself, hands wrapped to protect his chest. Hyperventilating, maybe in surprise at being able to breathe again.

"Edgar? Are you okay?"

Everything intact, no wounds, no blood, just Johnny staring at him.

_Different reality? Is this really different, in the end?_ Even panicked, frightened, he still managed to lash out, in one way or another.

~~~

He walked into the kitchen, blurry and tired. He rubbed at his eyes and saw Scriabin standing in front of the stove, wearing one of his old white shirts that had paint-like stains on it, which was weird because he didn't paint and had never painted, and he must have walked under some construction or something because that made no sense. 

Scriabin turned to look at him, his hair a mess of tangled knots of red yarn and matted uncombed hair, thick and shiny with oil from a shower avoided for far too long, his face smeared with whatever it was he was cooking. He was cooking. 

"Hey."

"Hey." Edgar stared, tired and confused, and Scriabin turned back to stirring whatever the red mess in the pot on the stove was. 

"What is that?" 

"Dinner." Scriabin smiled to himself, considered, then with a larger grin, clarified. 

"Edgar con carne." 

~~~

A huge room, open and wide with marble floors and a gigantic golden construction in its center, slowly oscillating. Something like the planets, something astrologically related he was sure. Globes spinning on huge axes, rising and dipping, reflecting from the floor, and through the glass above the sky was clear. An observatory, it had to be.

Scriabin stood in front of the grand machine, his arms held out wide. From his back spread two large black-webbed wings, thin fingers and leathery skin marked with dozens of thin red lines across a dark surface.

"Jesus came to you last night, Edgar," Scriabin said in an odd voice. He tilted his head back at to the machine, laughed in a way strange and frightening. "He came in you, too."

~~~

"Squee's dead." 

" _What?_ " 

~~~

God it was way too humid right here.

Were these flowers?

~~~

Standing in line, and he felt like someone was watching him. The vague smell of tacos, and someone's eyes boring into his back. 

Someone's fist slammed bodily into his midsection and he fell to the ground, completely winded. 

On a couch with a washcloth to his forehead, blood marking light fabric, and Johnny staring at him, alternately thankful and alternately annoyed. 

Johnny opened his mouth to say something, and his words mixed together in ways disgusting and incomprehensible, grating and loud and the static was building, rising, piercing 

~~~

The knife wrenched through the skin of his stomach, tore him open and he felt his entrails fall out of him, thick and heavy and he felt empty in a way he knew would be unforgettable. He tried to gather them up in his hands, put them back in place but when he bent over the knife landed somewhere between his shoulderblades.

The pain was enough to drive someone crazy before they died, and hysteria was certainly understandable.

~~~

"Am I dying?"

"No, crying. There's a difference."

"Oh God, what if that's real, what if that's what's really happening to me-"

"Shit, is it really worse in that case?"

~~~

Mary looked at her notes, and Edgar fell out of his chair onto the floor.

"Edgar, please. Are you all right? Do you want to go back to your room?"

"I'm sorry." _Please don't let this shift again, anything but going back to_ "I didn't mean to."

"C'mon, Edgar." Harry lifted him back onto his feet, sat him down again. "There we go, you're okay."

"Thank you, Harry. Now, we're talking about how subjective things can be at times. It's important for you to know, in case you're ever having difficulties with reality. The reality that we see, all of us, is interpreted by all of us differently. That's what subjective means. What we all see isn't the same thing. What we see may not be how things really are. You understand? A good method of changing your life is changing how you decide to see things."

"What if we're shifting realities?"

Mary turned to look at him, surprised he had spoken up.

"You have to ask yourself, 'Am I really shifting realities? Is this what's really happening? Or is this just what I _think_ is happening?' It's very important to try and keep that in mind."

"Maybe...this all isn't happening at all..." Edgar stared down. "Maybe I am just..."

Harry looked at him, took Edgar's hand in his own in a fatherly gesture.

"You'll survive, I know you will. You've come this far."

"How far do I have to go?" Edgar's voice broke.

"Until you're where you want to be."

"Thank you, Harry, that's a good philosophy."

Sitting on a piano bench, and his little brother beside him pressed the keys deliberately to knock him off time.

"That's my new philosophy," Scriabin said with great pride, and he placed his fingers on a good deal of keys and pressed down hard. Edgar had to stop practicing for the fifth time.

"That's your new philosophy?"

"That's my new philosophy."

He turned back to the piano keys, and they turned back on him.

~~~

_I'm dying I'm dying I'm dying_

_Oh god, you ARE._

~~~

"When it comes down to it, I won't let you go."

"...You _can't_ let me go."

"God _damn_ it, Scriabin, can you not take one thing at face value? Just say 'okay' or 'I believe you' or 'I'm glad you'll do that' or 'I won't let you go either' or something. Just stop...stop being _you_ for once."

"But it's so much fun, Edgar. You should try it."

"...Don't say that."

~~~

"Edgar!"

Snapped to awareness, to a feeling thick and afraid. Something wrapped around his legs, his chest, his neck and oh God. He knew this. That horrible cloying smell of decaying flesh and bone, and those tentacles digging into his skin, sharp barbs and spines. Almost incapacitated, but he heard that voice.

"Edgar, help!"

Scriabin.

Not too far away from him, trapped in his childform as well. His sweater still long over his hands, although from his back came miniature versions of those bone and yarn wings. Fleshy ropes tight around his chest, beneath the thick fabric of his large sweater and around the denim of his jeans, and he fought desperately against a force stronger than both of them.

"Scriabin!"

"Please-"

The thing laughed in a sickening way, and Edgar gritted his teeth, pulled his hands against his bonds as hard as possible, shut his eyes tightly.

"I won't let you-"

Its voice was softer now. "It's more fun when you're awake anyway."

"I won't let you-" Stronger and with more force, and he pulled and heard Scriabin screaming, high-pitched and terrified.

"Don't touch me-"

"I won't let you, not to him-!"

Tightened hard and painfully around his legs, cut off the circulation and he felt something sharp sliding down his back, around the edges of his shirt, and his jaw ached as he kept his teeth tight together. Kept pulling with all the force that his child-body could muster to get at least his hands free. Scriabin reached out to him, his hands desperate and grabbing across space. Tiny, useless wings beating helpless.

_Trust me, trust me._

Not sure who he was asking.

" _I won't let you_ -" Deep in his throat, harsh and angry, and he reached out far enough to catch the edge of Scriabin's sleeve.

"Edgar, please-"

_Trust me-_

The thing laughed at them again. Edgar struggled, tried to move his body, stretched and contorted and felt sharp things dig deep into muscles at the motion but he fought. He fought and struggled and bled for it, but he fought, and he reached out and he grabbed Scriabin's wrists through his sweater, held on tight. Scriabin twisted his hands, wrapped around enough to match the grip.

His shoulders being pulled out of their sockets, pressure unbelievable and while he opened his mouth to voice his pain, he did not let go.

He was determined not to let go.

~~~

Sitting at the kitchen table in his past again, staring at a bowl of cereal and he could hear his grandmother walking around. Edgar's entire body ached, insistent and hideous, and he didn't want to move in fear of provoking it any further.

There was one thing constant through the last shifts, and that was him. Well...him and Scriabin so far. They tied everything together, although he wasn't sure what that meant. How it would help, if there was a solution to be found somewhere in the pieces.

He stayed, and from the pain, effects lasted from one reality to the other now.

_So suicide then...I can't do that._

"There's a church picnic tomorrow, so I want you to be cleaned up and ready to go, you hear?"

"Yes, Granma." Default response to any question as a child. 

_But if pain lasts across, why am I not all...disemboweled? Maybe...maybe it's just the monsters, the monsters that do lasting damage...does that mean that was a dream? If Scriabin was there it was a dream...God, how much of this is real?_

He decided to risk it enough, the pain and he turned his head. Scriabin sat beside him with his head hidden in his arms, propped up a bit higher with the help of a few thick books. He shivered uncontrollably, and here his tiny wings were gone. His sweater had two small matching rips in the back, over his shoulders.

"That nice Tate woman is going to be there, and she'll probably have her daughter with her. Such a pretty girl, and smart too. She's got a good head on her shoulders. Don't you think so, Edgar?"

"Yes, Granma." Edgar lifted a hand, reached out, rested it on Scriabin's back. Skin brushed against skin through the holes, and Scriabin flinched in response, but didn't move away.

"I want you to try and talk to her tomorrow. She's a nice girl. Got a strong family, good sense of independence. She'll go far in this world, mark my words. She'd be good for you, I know it. Try and talk to her tomorrow. I won't have you just sitting and watching like you always do. It's never too early to plan for the future. I won't be here forever, you know."

"Yes, Granma."

Scriabin made an unhappy, pained noise, managed to force his body to move. He slid from his own stool onto Edgar's lap, his apparent sanctuary when in pain or frightened, and he curled up against him tightly. He made a miserable, soft sound, and Edgar held him through the aching. Scriabin shuddering fitfully, and Edgar looked down at the glimpses of his hands when they weren't covered by his sleeves. Wrists looked dark, but nothing definite.

Looked at himself, saw darkening lines and internal bleeding. No wonder it hurt.

"Someday you'll be married, Edgar..." His grandmother paused, looked at the ceiling. "That's when I know I can stop worrying about you. That's when your life really begins. When you're married, and you start a family of your own...I'll know you'll be taken care of then."

"Yes, Granma."

"Why couldn't I save you...?" Scriabin whispered. Edgar chanced a glance up at his grandmother, then looked back down.

"Maybe that was just from my memories..."

"That wasn't your memory..."

"I mean, it wasn't a real attack...just...a made up one."

"I hurt all over." Scriabin shivered. "It hurts too much."

"I hurt, too. But we survived. It couldn't get us, in the end. I hung onto you. We'll be okay." Edgar looked up at his grandmother again. "When it comes down to it...we'll survive."

~~~

His throat cut, and blood filled his lungs and he felt like he was drowning.

You can die in your dreams.

~~~

Some place loud and noisy and sharp, jagged edges all around and cutting through and he could barely find himself. Spread out thin, meshing and matching with the discord through the entire place, falling apart. Memories fading fast, sense of self fading, all emotions falling to one side, all in pieces. Piece after piece and it was so gradual, so gentle that he wasn't sure how to fight or why to fight or when to want to where to, what to do. He had no hands to reach out, to pick up the pieces again.

Where was he, who was he. Who what when where why, and all of those questions had no answer and maybe there wasn't a question. How sometimes spotlighted but joined its brothers as unanswerable. How answering a question nonexistant, going away and falling apart, thoughts of fighting gone with the concept of fighting and the whys and heretofores, and there it was gone again. He had it for a moment but he lost it, it was too sharp and too loud here somewhere.

Spreading out infinite, encompassing everything and his understanding of what was happening fading. Things were changing. The world was changing and he changed with it, moved and shifted. Malleable like water, like something that had no bones, and he had no bones now. He didn't have a body that he could recognize. He had a vague sense of himself, piece-meal memories that were getting lost in the jagged edges. Vicious destruction or carelessness was difficult to say, difficult to say and see and define, define. There was nothing to see, no identifiable color, nothing that could be placed in any concrete terms. He wasn't sure if he was anywhere at all. What this place was defied all his normal methods of description, as it relied on something other than his eyes and his emotions were fading, failing.

Something was very important and now he couldn't remember what it was.

Reached out, touched, nudged. Rubbed whatever it was that defined itself as him against some kind of rough edge, a memory or a razor that worked its way deep and out again, left a hole for the chaos to go through. Loss of mass, displaced and floating free in the aether. Touched and moved, hurt but there had to be pain to be hurt, some understanding of a body.

Something crashed into him, spread him far and wide as water dropped on pavement, spattered across thousands of potential realities. It crashed into him, scattered itself through his being, did something that he wasn't sure of.

Fell into words, into letters and numbers, into a world falling behind.

Edgar it said. Whatever it was. Associations drawn thin and hard and he felt whatever it was that was touching him reaching out to touch this new force that was mingling with his own, tangled in his own strange concept of self-involved space, of something that could be attached to a name. The thing that crashed into him held on, swirled within, orbited and revolved and worked into and through the hole that had been dug through him, pushed through him. Worn away the edges, it came and filled the gaps, dug in hard into something insubstantial that was how desperate it was.

Something tried to drag this new part of him away and he fought, he didn't want that. It came and filled the gaps, it felt natural and strong and in this world it felt as though it made sense. He didn't want it to leave and he wasn't sure how he was fighting it, just that he was somehow. A shattering shriek if he had eardrums, the world vibrating around him to pieces, falling apart and angry at him, blaming him.

Edgar it said again.

Stretched out fiber thin, thousands among thousands of different places, different people, different things, and the part that spun in whatever it was he considered himself now, as short a time that would last. How long his self would last, but he reached out, curled, incorporated, touched through thousands of soap bubbles, thin flashing scenes, splices from a movie reel that went too fast to be seen but they weren't being viewed, not necessarily. Falling together, falling apart, the shrieking furious and deafening and the world vengefully collapsing in on itself.

Scriabin he said.

With the word came understanding, and he wasn't sure if reality was defined before he said it or afterwards. That force that had crashed into him pulled itself apart just that much to affirm what he had said, kept close and around him, buzzing and angry and speaking in one way or another.

Shapes, all fading and formless. One thing remained constant, one feeling. Every person condensed, words into soundbytes that lasted less than a second, memories and flashes too fast and colliding with one another, sparklers and explosions of a life that he once knew. Destroyed systematically, falling apart by their collision, by perhaps their own bid for supremacy in this ruined landscape, the concepts that stretched high and collapsed and faded the next, passions and emotions that maybe formed the rafters of whatever this world could have been. Still without sight but basic knowledge, a strange kind of inherent knowingness, familiarity with his surroundings and the pieces that whirled around him, screaming and shrieking.

Scriabin he said again. The world around him recoiled at however the word was voiced, however it found its way into existence. Perhaps a thought, perhaps a tongue at work somewhere, but everything was far too nebulous right now to say for sure. The pieces around him pulled together more, kept their shrieking buzzing cacophony for nonexistant ears. 

Edgar he said back, and with the change in pronoun the pieces snapped together into something solid but still attached to him in one way or another, a cord running through and a heartbeat finally was the first thing he could hear, something definite. A sense regained and with it the others had to follow because that was what was expected, that was what reality should have been, and he was trying now, pulling hard. Someone told him long ago not to give up, not to give up.

He'd be okay, he'd be okay in the end.

He promised someone that he'd be okay.

"Edgar!"

He could hear, and the world around him screamed and shook enough to make him regret it. Forms coalescing in the nothingness, finding pieces in the shattered remains of ill-fated memories. Nothing existed anymore, nothing he could remember. All he knew were those two names and that he had something he had to do, something that was very important and he wouldn't give up. He promised someone that he wouldn't give up, and that was the one thing he had that had lasted.

"Scriabin!"

Eyes and he could see and it was silent. 

Blank whiteness all around, the edges of it torn to shreds as if by some invading creature. In front of him sat a man who looked entirely too familiar, wearing a large sweater and larger jeans. He sat and shivered and fell apart at the edges sometimes.

"Edgar, I'm still..." He tested his mouth out. "I'm still here."

Pieces and parts. He reached down, picked up a flickering shard of a memory long ago, watched it melt into his hand and felt it come back to him. A scrap of something, but what he wasn't sure. Out of context, maybe useless. The man in front of him stared, watched.

"I..."

"You're Edgar, you're Edgar, I remember that." Scriabin looked around. "I don't know where we are...I don't know what happened. I don't know who we are..."

"I'm Edgar...and you're Scriabin, then..."

"Yeah..."

"Where are we?"

"I don't know...I don't know how we got here. Were we always here?"

"We couldn't have always been here..."

"I can't remember anything else. I can't remember anything except...your name. I can't...it's all gone. Everything's gone...if I had everything, it's gone...I must have had something. I feel like I had something once, but I'm not sure...I can't remember. A hole...something empty."

Edgar held out his hand.

"I know that you're important to me. I know that I'm important to you. I guess that's as good a place to start as any, right?"

Scriabin took his hand, let Edgar pull him to his feet. They stood next to each other, two men in a vast dead world of destroyed thoughts and ripped borders and a broken life. Open and with no protection now. They'd have to find shelter eventually.

"What happened to us? What happened here?"

Scriabin kept his hold on Edgar's hand, and Edgar let him do so.

"I don't know. I don't know where we are."

"Who are we?"

"I don't know. I don't remember anything...I don't know why we're here, or what we're trying to do."

"You can't remember anything either..."

"But we're important...important to each other, I know. It must be. You...you look familiar."

"Yeah, so do you..."

"Maybe we're related?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I just..." Scriabin looked down at his shoes, battered and with no shoelaces. "I just, I can't...something's wrong. Maybe something's wrong, this doesn't feel...I don't feel...something's gone."

"I feel the same way," Edgar said, and Scriabin smiled at the validation. "I want to know what happened...why we're here, who we are. But I don't think...maybe not for a while, even. How did we get here?"

"I don't know..."

"How old are we?"

Edgar paused, and the scraps of the horizon fluttered somehow.

"We?"

"I don't know how old I am...do you know how old you are? Maybe we're the same age. We're the same height, more or less. I think we weigh the same, too. You look so familiar."

"Maybe...I don't know." Something fought against definition, the definite, and he wasn't sure what it was. "Something must have happened though, this place is ruined. Something bad must have happened here."

"Maybe we're the only survivors." Scriabin looked out over the vast, empty, white plain. "I guess we're alone."

"No...whoever did this...I'm sure they're alive, somewhere. We're going to have to be careful."

"Are we staying together?" Scriabin said with a smirk, and something about that jolted a knife through Edgar's chest, his stomach, and he doubled over. Scriabin's hand was on his back immediately, close and concerned and his voice was tight and fast. "Jesus, are you okay, um...Edgar?"

"I'm...I'm fine..." Edgar did not feel fine, but he didn't want to worry Scriabin. It was probably nothing. The fact that Scriabin felt so concerned meant they must have known each other somehow, someway, before whatever it was that happened. In the life that Edgar was sure he must have had, although he had no clue as to what it could have been. "I'm sorry, it's just...it's nothing."

Scriabin looked thoughtful for a few seconds. "I think we should stay together. We must have known each other, before. In whatever lives we lived, we must have known each other somehow. I'm worried about you, that can't be for nothing."

Edgar looked at Scriabin, smiled weakly. "Ha...that's what I was thinking."

"Really?" Scriabin raised an eyebrow. "Weird. You sure you're all right?"

"Yeah...I'll be okay, Scri. Can I call you Scri?"

"Sure."

"It's..." Edgar ran a hand over his chest, testing. The stabbing pain was gone, but it was so sudden and sharp. He stood up slowly, hesitantly. "Do you think it's a coincidence, that we survived and no one else did? Do you think it's a coincidence that we knew each other before, and we're alive now?"

"Probably not, but I can't say for sure. Maybe we're just lucky."

Edgar looked at the edge of the tattered world, defenses completely broken. Looked at Scriabin and himself, found them solid in a world destroyed. That meant something. "No...no, I think that...I think we're going to survive."

Scriabin tilted his head. "How so?"

"I think...I can't remember anything, I can't remember a single thing but I have this feeling that...this isn't the first time. I have the feeling that...we've done this before. That we've survived like this before. I think...I think that's what we do. Together. Maybe that's why we're both here, we help each other survive."

"Like army buddies, I guess." Scriabin put his hands in the pouch of his sweater. "Maybe you're right. It sounds good enough. I mean...we'll never know if it was true, but it sounds good."

"You don't think we'll ever remember again?"

Scriabin was silent for a few seconds.

"I think I'm a pessimist."

"Maybe..." Edgar turned, looked behind him. The same ravaged white landscape, borders torn like fabric or paper, destroyed deliberately and with an intent to do...something. Whatever it was that had happened. "Either way...I think we'll survive. I think we survive."

"How do you know?"

"I...I don't know." He looked at his companion. "I just...I just know. I just know that we're going to be okay."

Scriabin looked at him doubtfully. Something squeaked from behind the broken borders, something hissed and moved. Scriabin moved closer to Edgar's side, took his hand and Edgar squeezed his hand in response.

"We'll survive," Scriabin said without much conviction.

Edgar stared into the unknown, and he didn't let go.

"We'll survive." Make it so. "I know we will. I think we've made it through the worst of it, don't you? We're still here. I think we've made it. I think we'll make it. From now on..."

Scriabin turned to look at him curiously, and Edgar wondered why he wore reflective glasses. He'd ask him later, maybe.

"Things will definitely get better."

  
The End

(Author's Note: This totally went off in a different direction than I intended. It's become some kind of weird fic nexus. Almost every fic anyone's ever written involving Edgar and Nny found its way in here. What a weird weird fic.  
Heh. Looks like the two of them survived the collapse at the end, although Edgar physically is probably in a coma and has no idea that he's dreaming, with a good chance he won't wake up again at all. Also now that Edgar's mind is completely gone, it makes it a vast playground for the monsters, who'll probably descend on Edgar and Scri in seconds. Wow, now that I think about it, this is a horribly depressing ending. WOO GO SELF.  
I did like tying it to the diaryfic in the last bit though. Mwaha. 

Random lyrics in the first part are from a song called "Change Myself" by Todd Rundgren. Snippets from any other fic or something that made it in here in some other way or form are the property of their respective owners. As a list, thanks to Xel, Yamamuri Sadako, Kitty-N, Dachan, Moonie1, Dai, Dee, Starwolf, TwistedToaster, AutumnXellos, Exit, OkageHime, Lady Yate-xel, Mango, Iktia, Lana, Mith-maulin, Rueyeet, Starie, Moonlitwaters, Crow, Karuri, Chelle, Levi, Kurumi, Sally-skellington, and ShadowCavalier. You guys are awesome.) 


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